Post by: dino on March 03, 2020, 01:51:15 PM
These spikes also make technologies that allow them absolute must have, coupled with exponential growth of tech cost, leave very little room for variety in viable order of research.
Why not nerf completely unbalanced features, that create these spikes in development speed first ? Exe mods required marked with *
New population growth model idea:
1) *Make rows of nutrients required to grow a pop constant, may be adjustable in the ini, I'd suggest 3 rows.
2) *Disable popboom mechanic, make clonning vats just give ++GROWTH ( the game can go as low as 3 nutrient per row ).
3) Basic colony pod cost 5 mineral rows
Terrain nerfs:
Forest: 1,1,2, *hybrid forest +1,1,0
*make rolling+mine+road produce 3 minerals, to make it more competitive with hybrid forest.
Condenser: count as soil enricher, but disable +50% bonus ( *already implemented in Ytzi's Patch )
Borehole: 0,4,4
Improved Sea: 2,1,2 ( additional +1,1,1 still possible from expansion facilities )
*Give Aquatic factions Adv Eco mining platform mineral bonus from the start instead of their default bonus, disable AdvEco bonus for other factions.
*Satellites nerf:
Max resources: 25% of base size, 50% with aerospace complex
***
Positive results:
Population growth speed would be proportional to nutrients production and indirectly to population size, NOT to the number of bases.
This coupled with increased colony cost makes ICS strategy no longer always superior to growing bases tall.
It would also make nutrients more valuable and a choice between nutrient and mineral harversting would be a significant one.
Growing base up to size 4 would take as much time as in vanilla, but after that it'd be slower then popbooming, AI would also handle it better.
Morgan and Yang no longer would have a heavy disadvantage in pop growth.
Advanced terraforming would be used more sparringly, leading to more varied and less tedious terraforming.
Slower development speed in mid and late game with no drastic spikes due to lack of completely game changing techs.
With accordingly matched tech cost curve, there would be more viable tech research order strategies, allowing for more diverse playstyles.
Post by: bvanevery on March 03, 2020, 06:59:03 PM
There are also multiple paths to "perfection". For instance, I don't do binary modding, only *.txt modding. I've addressed most problems with the game by this means. Not all, but most. There are many ways to skin a cat.
Growth, for instance. I seriously limited GROWTH bonuses in the early to mid game. You can do Socialist for +1 GROWTH, that's it. I made pop booming difficult for almost all factions. You would need a Children's Creche for +2 GROWTH, Eudaimonia to get +2 GROWTH, and a Golden Age for +2 GROWTH, to get the +6 GROWTH necessary for a pop boom. Basically you the human player are not going to pop boom in the early to mid game. At least, I don't think so. Maybe I have a play style bias where it is indeed possible and I'm not seeing it. But I've certainly made it harder to do.
Only our beloved Chairman Yang has a +1 GROWTH bonus. He could pick Socialist to get another +1 GROWTH. Then he could forego Eudaimonia or forego a Golden Age and still pop boom. That's it, only faction that can do it.
If you have all of those grossly fat GROWTH bonuses from the stock SE table, I really don't see the point in bothering with other growth / nutrient adjustments. The low hanging fruit is to change the SE table. For reference, here's mine. Stable for 6 months now.
social engineering choices in versions 1.34 through 1.40 |
Post by: dino on March 03, 2020, 11:11:31 PM
In SMAC the faction that would start close to a lot of rainy terrain would dominate the game, so increasing cost of pop growth limits this runaway effect, I didn't think about it.
So not so sure about it anymore, but I'd still be curious about testing it in smac, at worst it would work fine on maps with dense cloud at least.
As for your SE table, I actually like some of it, I'll definitely borrow few ideas for my SE table.
I'd remove Yang's GROWTH bonus, he was disadvantaged in popboom and being on equal footing is already an upgrade, while being the only faction that can popboom is a huge boost.
Post by: vonbach on March 03, 2020, 11:56:09 PM
Post by: bvanevery on March 04, 2020, 03:54:59 AM
My Yang was not given +1 GROWTH in isolation. I've had several versions of Yang in my mod. What I've got now, IMO is balanced WRT other factions in my mod. Until playtesters prove otherwise. It's definitely balanced in terms of real world AI performance with a stock binary.
Post by: vonbach on March 04, 2020, 05:02:30 AM
Post by: bvanevery on March 04, 2020, 05:50:13 AM
Post by: vonbach on March 04, 2020, 06:44:26 AM
things like this. Its one of the reasons I like to add + growth bonuses. Adding the clean reactor t my games is a thought.
Post by: bvanevery on March 04, 2020, 11:39:37 PM
I've observed the AI building mines on farms. The stock game penalizes the farm production for that. I've removed the penalty in my mod. It makes life easier for the AI, and it keeps me from having to reformat the terrain when I take over a region, fixing all the things the AI did "wrong".
Post by: vonbach on March 05, 2020, 12:13:31 AM
Post by: bvanevery on March 05, 2020, 05:26:24 AM
Post by: EmpathCrawler on March 07, 2020, 07:38:34 PM
Terrain nerfs:
Forest: 1,1,2,
Funny because I've been experimenting with 1,2,0 forests myself. I find I produce way too much energy in the middle to late game after seeding my territory early on. Then I shoot ahead the AI by channeling all my energy into rush building economy and lab facilities. My goal is to make forests only worth it in the early game on truly barren terrain or on low altitude flat river tiles. I've run a few games with interesting results, but I'm still not satisfied. On Reddit somebody suggested fiddling with the terraforming times which is another interesting avenue.
It would be nice if the forest growth rate was modable.
Caveat: I've been playing casually after a very long break and only with Scient/Thinker so I don't know if my glut of energy is typical or due to changes made by those mods.
Post by: bvanevery on March 07, 2020, 08:01:21 PM
Another sanity check is, do you play on Transcend? I'm always surprised when veteran players don't. Of course, I am using a stock binary.
Post by: Nexii on March 20, 2020, 07:16:40 PM
I think my next rework would be something like:
early - farm, forest, solar, mine
mid - enrichers, tree farm
late - condensers, hybrid farm, echelons, boreholes
very late game - satellites
Means a lot of tech switching around, and Weather Paradigm obviously can't be an early project. I guess it means some other fun techs can come a bit earlier. This is about the best you can do since a lot of terraforming techs have limited modification possible. I think even if they were through patches, you'd have the same problem.
Post by: bvanevery on March 20, 2020, 07:25:32 PM
The problem as I saw it was that you get very powerful terraforming technologies too early in the game.
Well of course if you can throw Condensers on everything and get huge piles of food, pop booming is a big problem. In my mod, you can't have them until Advanced Ecological Engineering. You don't even get Thermal Boreholes then, you have to wait until Industrial Automation which is the next tier up in my mod. There's all kinds of "lard" in this game. I seriously put the whole damn thing on a diet. You can't have anything easily now. Not even a weapon. Want Particle Impactors? You'd better work for them, and don't expect them to just blow the doors off of everything.
Nobody can start Secret Projects until Tier 3. All SPs cost 300 minerals minimum. Weather Paradigm costs 400 minerals because it's more powerful than other early SPs.
Quote
very late game - satellites
I tried to do that. It wasn't as possible as I wanted. Sky Hydroponics Labs has to come before other satellites or there's a UI bug, you can't see the satellites. I ended up going back to them being with Orbital Spaceflight, which is earlier than I wanted. That's because I want to have Orbital Defense Pods coming reasonably soon after nukes are available, but I still have to make room for the SHLs.
Post by: Hans Lemurson on March 24, 2020, 08:24:48 AM
I really liked constant pop rows in CivEvo, but every civ there is guaranteed to have early access to some grassland, or food resource tiles.I too think that C-Evo did a good job of limiting the potency of ICS.
In SMAC the faction that would start close to a lot of rainy terrain would dominate the game, so increasing cost of pop growth limits this runaway effect, I didn't think about it.
So not so sure about it anymore, but I'd still be curious about testing it in smac, at worst it would work fine on maps with dense cloud at least.
-Growth cost is constant, so larger developed cities grow population faster than small ones
-No free resources from city center. If you don't provide the city with any farmland, it simply will not grow.
-Cities can't contribute gold/science to the empire until they complete a building
More cities were always better, but they were much slower to pay off and so you had to be smart about when and where you founded them.
You're right though that Planet's uneven rainfall could define the "winners" and "losers" a little sooner than we'd like. C-Evo's terrain distribution was a little more even-handed.
Post by: Nexii on March 24, 2020, 07:18:43 PM
I too think that C-Evo did a good job of limiting the potency of ICS.
-Growth cost is constant, so larger developed cities grow population faster than small ones
-No free resources from city center. If you don't provide the city with any farmland, it simply will not grow.
-Cities can't contribute gold/science to the empire until they complete a building
More cities were always better, but they were much slower to pay off and so you had to be smart about when and where you founded them.
You're right though that Planet's uneven rainfall could define the "winners" and "losers" a little sooner than we'd like. C-Evo's terrain distribution was a little more even-handed.
Yea I tried similar modding, nerfing down the city tile production. Found you were too much at the mercy of the terrain. I'm not convinced ICS is all that overpowering in AC anyways, between B-drones and commerce effects. Some of it I'd say is overcosted facilities, reducing cost and maintenance encourages vertical development. Can also try with colony pod module costing more.
After putting borehole & condensor at Advanced Ecological Engineering, I found that sea tiles really dominated in SMAX. 3/0/3 and easily going to 4/0/4 with aquafarm and thermocline. Though it's a good point that they are a terrain equalizer. I kind of like the idea of sea being good for nutrients. It's just a little too good compared to solar on land...
Post by: Nexii on May 20, 2020, 05:46:39 PM
Post by: Hagen0 on May 20, 2020, 08:20:26 PM
I like the suggestions in the OP. However, mechanics like pop booming, satellites, +2 Economy make Smac what it is. Pop booming is clearly stupid but removing it will remove some of what make Smac a unique game. I see two options, nerf/remove all the overpowered options and what you get will be quite similar to the gameplay of Civ3 or Civ4, say, with some unique flavour. This is not bad, those are good games. If you want to keep Smac's unique gameplay you will have to accept that the economy of the leading human player in SP or MP will go off through the stratosphere at some point.
Post by: Nexii on May 20, 2020, 09:26:14 PM
One aspect to Forests is their upgrade facility doesn't really come at a sunk cost like upgrading Farm/Solar. Or Thermocline/Trunkline on sea. Tree Farm is worth it for the ECON/PSYCH alone. Hybrid Forest maybe less so, but still, the ecodamage reduction is helpful.
Myself I'm all for pop booming and satellites etc. Some of these things I just think didn't require quite enough tech was all. Part of the problem is external to economic growth, 50% of the tech tree or more is conquer techs that weren't all that efficient in providing a military advantage. A lot of the time those flashy military upgrades weren't worth the extra cost. Exceptions being the needlejet and copter chassis. So beelines to the economic techs then became the optimal way to play.
I think it was mentioned the advanced terraforming should be toned down a bit in productivity. I suppose another option would be to make it pollute a lot more. It's a fine line though, which if crossed means Green economics is necessary and +2 ECON isn't a strategy anymore.
Post by: Hagen0 on May 20, 2020, 10:04:36 PM
One aspect to Forests is their upgrade facility doesn't really come at a sunk cost like upgrading Farm/Solar. Or Thermocline/Trunkline on sea. Tree Farm is worth it for the ECON/PSYCH alone. Hybrid Forest maybe less so, but still, the ecodamage reduction is helpful.
You think so? 12 rows is a lot. Building them definitely put me behind vs my advanced terraforming rival in one of the few pbems I played. However, that was with 5 row crawlers. Since formers and colony pods are also more expensive in the mod maybe the trade-off is different.
Post by: Nexii on May 20, 2020, 10:16:47 PM
Post by: Tayta Malikai on May 20, 2020, 11:10:30 PM
Post by: Hagen0 on May 21, 2020, 12:00:22 AM
It's close, I think T-hawk said they were marginally not worth it if you aren't running Forests. I had them at 10/2 and crawlers at 50. Just because I was simplifying most facilities to cost multiples of 5, for some reason. I may revisit the facility costing. I've also been modding to make ecodamage relevant, so thats a consideration too.
That's intriguing. Where did he say that?
Post by: Nexii on May 21, 2020, 12:04:12 AM
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on September 06, 2020, 06:44:25 PM
1) *Make rows of nutrients required to grow a pop constant, may be adjustable in the ini, I'd suggest 3 rows.
That definitely encourages having bigger bases. The bigger they are the faster they grow as to the mid game nutrient surplus is proportional to base size (times quality of the land, of course). I'm afraid it will be too much of the effect, though. Some jungle base size 5 with +2 nutrient surplus per working tile grows in 3 turns! And them faster and faster. It seems a bit excessive. Some actually want the game to last. Besides, players would just hit other obstacles like drones, pop-limit facilities, etc. Meaning your super fast growth won't work anyway due to other mechanisms.
Unable to grow people would turn excess nutrients into minerals (forest, mine), which is completely fine but that actually demises the initial idea of fast growing. It turns out to be unneeded.
Post by: lolada on September 15, 2020, 08:03:11 AM
Farms are only good if you can turn tiles into 2-1-x or 3-1-x.. where 2-1-1 is kind of barelly any good. You end up with moderate amount of these. Now once you get Tree Farms forests turn into 2-2-1 and smart thing to do is to remove almost all of 2-1-x tiles and you end up with very few farms. Then there's little point planning to build Condensers and Echellon mirrors; in the end its forest almost everything strat. These adv. terraforming improvements are AOE, but since there's so few tiles around in farms/solars there's really no good places to build them.
Sometimes, terrain is good green rainy, rolling so one can place a Condensers and/or Mirror, but in general the best strat is to forest vast amounts of land. Food is too important.
I would consider removing Food yield from Tree Farms and placing it on Hybrid Forests. That makes farms/solars much more valuable.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on September 15, 2020, 01:19:37 PM
rainy farm + forest = 1.25 minerals/worker + 0.5 extra energy/worker
2 rainy farms + rocky mine = 1.67 minerals/worker
What would you replace TF bonus nutrient - energy?
Post by: lolada on September 15, 2020, 01:42:30 PM
I am pretty sure that Tree forests being 2-2-1 kills lots of farms for the good frome the game. Only farms that stay are 2-1-3 or 2-1-4.. or 3+-1-x which are rare. So in order to balance terraforming there needs to be more good farms or forests can't be that good (2-2-1) so early.
For example, Soil enricher is great but it comes late so its irrelevant. Condensers/Mirros help but they also come late and are situational, unless you get Weather Paradigm.
- So one solution would be to unlock Condenser earlier or in same time as Tree forests. So one can build them and 3-1-x tiles are comparable to 2-2-1 from farms. If they come later farms are gone already. That sounds good unless i am somehow badly wrong. When are Condensers unlocked?
Its about design i guess - i would like to see rolling tiles turned to rains and farm/mined.. with ocassional Condenser and Mirror, and those arid areas maybe forested. This way one could leave Tree farms 2-2-1 but they do need to come into game late enough to allow some better farm terraforming.
- Another option is just to give them energy... what else - then it it is 1-2-2 tile which is pretty interesting.. 1-2-3 with +2 ECO. But you need to get food to work those forests - so farms and coast is important. That also looks good.
Hybrid forests can have nutrients. These facilities are great anyway since they boost eco and psych and both are great.
Mines are good - they are great source of minerals when minerals are needed and drones are a problem.
Boreholes are also zz when you can build forests - i didn't build even one they just do little for lots of eco dmg.
So this is my Spartan game, this is how my terraforming ended up. Lots of forests and I am actually removing 2-1-x farm and there's no way I am going to remove forests and search for places to build Condensers at this point. Formers actually die in this time period.
(https://i.imgur.com/YpyGSD5.png)
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on September 15, 2020, 02:10:49 PM
I was hoping you would come with some interesting idea ???
I am pretty sure that Tree forests being 2-2-1 kills lots of farms for the good frome the game. Only farms that stay are 2-1-3 or 2-1-4.. or 3+-1-x which are rare. So in order to balance terraforming there needs to be more good farms or forests can't be that good (2-2-1) so early.
Try out recent wtp nutrient model. It gives +2 to farm making forest less competitive to farm+solar. It is still pretty good on arid/flat tiles especially with HF later on.
But even in vanilla they are not used everywhere just probably at 20-40% worst tiles. Nutrients are very important and forest will never be comparable to farming. More nutrients = bigger bases = more of everything. Initially forest is not even self sustaining. With TF it is but it is not enough at this point in game. HF makes forest bases grow but this is still too slow at this point in time with condensers+enrichers. Forest bases will always be behind in population and, therefore, behind in all other resources. The fact that they produce decent amount of minerals and energy is a temporary trade-off. It would be quite useful if one can quickly switch farms for growth to forests for minerals but it is impossible. Bases are stuck with their land improvement type for long.
With the above in mind we should not compare yield of one forest tile to one farm+solar tile. We should compare yield of one forest tile to about two farm+solar tiles. 👆
Post by: lolada on September 16, 2020, 09:46:25 AM
Player simply values minerals much more because minerals lets you do stuff. Nutrients are needed just to a point. Basically in ideal situation one could go high nutrients grow and then switch to forests and minerals.. but it usually does not go that way due to drones, SE and safety. High pop and energy lets you research, but you get stuck unable to build expensive units. Player go around and build glass cannon while AI gets stuck build super-duper probe unit for 12 turns that it then loses attacking 0-1-1 probe.
If you could use energy to build units... ans grow more... its very inefficient at 4 energy per mineral rushing. Thats why player rushes infrastructure (at 2 energy per min..) and hard builds units.
And I don't get that 1 forest per 2 farm+solar logic. Smart thing is to work as much good tiles as possible. I can't choose to work 6 farm+solars or 3 forests.. i end up with 6 pops for example.. cant get more due to drones and can't grow so i have no use for food. Then I want to work as much min/energy as possible with those 6 pops while being neutral on food. So basically the way it plays out.. food is important early up to a point and then you want to switch to minerals and 2-2-1 tiles are ideal since they are food neutral.
Later when you want to grow more you could really use more food i guess - thats why i don't forest everything, but keep 3+ food tiles "alive".. The way to keep more farm tiles from replacing by forests - would be to enable Soil enrichers earlier or Condensers earlier do that farms don't get replaced in the first place. Its really impractical to replace forests later because they cover terrain - PRACX has those layers so one in theory could do it, but its way more micro than i am willing to do. Then there are multipliers.. like Recycling tanks, Genejack factories.. there are nor multipliers for food.
Anyway its complex balance issue - I don't see how its good to rely on Farms+Solars if you don't have multiple mines around and some extra nutrient resources to actually use them. Thats exceptionally good base to have - its rare. Even then you get stuck with eco damage from mines and forests help there. You also can't say you can use Soil enrichers - because by the time player gets them its mostly game over. I use them over farms that i have left.
tldr... Tree forests 2-2-1 are great and they kill lots of farms/solars from the map. Is it good or bad i don't know, I prefer to see those mirrors and condensers they are cooler high-tech environement than forest almost everything. I'd almost like to have special improvement that adds 1 min to farm+solar without eco dmg.
Post by: bvanevery on September 16, 2020, 03:13:57 PM
I'd almost like to have special improvement that adds 1 min to farm+solar without eco dmg."Rock fruits?"
Post by: lolada on September 16, 2020, 04:02:10 PM
Quote
"Rock fruits?"Multivitamins and minerals - we have it now ;stupid Magnesium, Calcium that stuff. Its already in forests so they get 2-2-1.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on September 16, 2020, 05:50:07 PM
Its mixed there you are partly right in theory, but it doesn't feel right in gameplay terms to me.. Like you are right that long-term food prevails - in theory leading to stronger cities, but does that really matters, when you use forests and overrun opponents who don't have minerals? Then you get double the amount of bases and it snowballs. Then as a player especially you can't really grow as much as you would like. Your logic is more applicable to AI, see for example Lal here with size 12+ bases and more space to grow.. he went to 15-17 pop a bit later.. while i get stuck at 7-10. I need to extract as much minerals as possible to compete - build units, secret projects, infrastructure - since its impossible for me to grow more.
You are right that my theory was one sided. No one is channeling all nutrient surplus into growth. It is distributed between growth and supporting poor nutrient mineral production tiles: forests, rocky mines. However, even in their mineral supporting application farms + mines are better than forests. You can review it yourself at different stages (TF, HF, enrichers, etc.) with different worker placement distribution. So farm bases won't grow twice as forest bases in practice. They'll probably grow about 25% faster and will have about 25% more minerals at the same time. I don't yet have math to support this but your statement that 2-2-1 forest kills 3-1-2 farm bends truth too much too as it neither yield is superior to other. It may feel this way for some but the difference is too subtle to be obvious.
Post by: EmpathCrawler on September 17, 2020, 02:19:39 AM
You are right that my theory was one sided. No one is channeling all nutrient surplus into growth. It is distributed between growth and supporting poor nutrient mineral production tiles: forests, rocky mines. However, even in their mineral supporting application farms + mines are better than forests. You can review it yourself at different stages (TF, HF, enrichers, etc.) with different worker placement distribution. So farm bases won't grow twice as forest bases in practice. They'll probably grow about 25% faster and will have about 25% more minerals at the same time. I don't yet have math to support this but your statement that 2-2-1 forest kills 3-1-2 farm bends truth too much too as it neither yield is superior to other. It may feel this way for some but the difference is too subtle to be obvious.
lolada is having a similar conversation to one I recall us having before about tile yields. I think you are too focused on comparing raw tile yields outside of their context while ignoring a lot of quirks and perks from forests and their potential knock on effects to your economy. Every forest spread is former-turns saved, to use T-Hawk's term. I think that's why lolada and I agree based on our intuition. A size 7 base working 2-2-1 forests is going to produce at least 16 minerals and 9 energy per turn with potentially very few former-turns spent, won't starve, and will be pretty solid economically with a Genejack Factory and Energy Bank. Solid enough to do what they're doing in that screenshot: conquering fat bases from the AI to compensate for their bad position.
A lot more math has to be done here to make an informed determination.
Post by: lolada on September 17, 2020, 12:41:50 PM
Ok, I will try to do some testing to see if i am playing wrong and how much exactly. Just to correct you - I said farms destroy 2-1-2 forests, not 3-1-2 those are worth keeping - but they are rare. 2-1-2 are common and they get destroyed. So you end up with lots of forests and few good 3-1-2 farms that you can build soil enrichers on.
Lets try to setup things a bit:
1. At very start obviously you want 2-1-2, 3-1-2 to grow and forest 1-2-1 are only ok if you can't grow more.. this is until you get sources of more food
2. Mines are used only when you can't grow and you HAVE to have good food to support them.. 4-1-2 or 2x 3-1-2.. (you actually removed 1f from rec tanks).
Mines are somewhat rare as well as good rainy tiles.. btw i rarely use 3-0-1 or 3-0-2, if i really can't grow differently.. i rather go for 2-1-2
3. Then Tree forests come.. its great facility.. +eco +psych can't be underestimated.. i would consider it building for larger bases even if i had no forests at all. When you count it eco dmg reduction.. its like the best facility in the game.
- here i value 2-2-1 tiles quite more than 2-1-2.. so i forest them. I do keep 3-1-2 or better so i can grow more later.
- i will also consider foresting 3-0-1, 3-0-2 tiles for 2-2-1 if i need minerals
4. Then late on come soil enrichers and i just use them on farms i have.. thats my usual routine.
---------
Now odds here are adv. terraforming. I do use Condensers when I have access to them and basically i turn 2-1-2 tiles into 3-1-2. Then i place Mirrors if there's good spot. Issue here is that bases without forests have crap minerals unless you have mines around. From my XP and settling pattern, quite often there is not enough mines. So lately i am using more and more Mining platforms on the sea to compensate.
Btw - have to do this with mining platforms - because i think Boreholes are ruined - 0-2-4 is just not good enough tile. I'd rather have 2-2-1. So in newest WTP versions there are no boreholes in my land - if i see arid flat tile - its going to be forest. Then its hard to justify building any condensers when almost everything is forested. I suppose I could build condenser anyway - then recheck terrain and farm/solar again forested tiles.
So two problems here..
1. I often get condensers late, can we get them a bit earlier (compared to Tree forests)?
2. And there is lack of minerals on maps - maybe i should play on rocky planets, i will consider that. Boreholes used to fill mineral role, now they are not worth
it. How do we get minerals? Gotta go for forests.
Side note:
Also, sea mining platforms producing 2 minerals from the get go would be interesting. Food could be cut down to 2 to balance. Its change sea mechanics a bit.. but its likely for the better; sea bases are NOT fun.
To use mines - one need 4 food source, or two 3 food sources - that's hard to get. So it often even makes sense to level the terrain and just use forests instead of mines. The problem is once you level the terrain its forever. Eco damage is issue also once you get multipliers.. thats another go for forests instead of mines.
Once you get soil enricher thing change - so its easier to get more food to support mines, if you have any left. i didn't even consider Hybrid forests as i find them too expensive in general, they are very late game.
I am circling here.. to sum up:
I feel like there's little space/time for condensers and forests take over. Thus mines are used less. And boreholes are now ruined so mineral issue is worse - benefiting forest spam. I suppose i could improve my terraforming by going with 3rd pass, checking over terrain and farming forests later once i get Condensers. I don't do this because everything is forest so i don't see base terrain - i guess i can use PRACX. Then maybe another check on Soil enrichers.
Am i going totally wrong somewhere here? I don't know at one point in midgame its all too much micro and i just don't want to search for which forests to remove and where exactly to place Condenser when it randomly? change tiles around.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on September 17, 2020, 02:54:35 PM
2. Mines are used only when you can't grow and you HAVE to have good food to support them.. 4-1-2 or 2x 3-1-2.. (you actually removed 1f from rec tanks).
Temporary experimentation. I've returned it back.
Mines are somewhat rare as well as good rainy tiles.
The frequency of appearance would depend on map parameters but by default there should be about 1/3 rocky tiles and about 1/3 rainy tiles. Rocky tiles should be also, more or less, evenly distributed but rainy tiles, though, may be clustered and not evenly distributed.
1. I often get condensers late, can we get them a bit earlier (compared to Tree forests)?
That may vary depending on version but latest WTP uses the same tech sequence as vanilla: Ecological Engineering (condensers) -> Environmental Economics (TF). So you should get condensers before. In other version that order may be swapped but they are still in relatively same time bucket and no more than one tech level difference.
2. And there is lack of minerals on maps - maybe i should play on rocky planets, i will consider that. Boreholes used to fill mineral role, now they are not worth
it. How do we get minerals? Gotta go for forests.
You mean rocky tiles? Personally I never experienced lack of rocky tiles. Sometimes, some coastal bases could happen to get 0-1 rocky tiles due to limited land coverage but it is like 1 in 20 bases. On average they get like 3-5 rocky tiles. I wouldn't say bases systematically lack them.
To use mines - one need 4 food source, or two 3 food sources - that's hard to get. So it often even makes sense to level the terrain and just use forests instead of mines. The problem is once you level the terrain its forever.
Leveling is irreversible but do you actually need to level for forests? Isn't it enough non rocky tiles around for it?
I feel like there's little space/time for condensers and forests take over. Thus mines are used less. And boreholes are now ruined so mineral issue is worse - benefiting forest spam.
Yea. Balancing boreholes is a pain. We can return them back to 4+ minerals and let them obsolete mines or we can give them more energy like 6 or 8 if you believe it'll increase their value. I am not fixated on either.
Am i going totally wrong somewhere here? I don't know at one point in midgame its all too much micro and i just don't want to search for which forests to remove and where exactly to place Condenser when it randomly? change tiles around.
Let me reiterate it once more. Forest is a very good improvement. It's yield is so close by value to conventional terraforming and with some other benefits there is no surprise people actually prefer it. That is completely fine if you want to use it all around. My calculations are not to avert everybody from it. I was to show that even if forest is slightly below in output comparing to best contemporary conventional improvement it is still quite often a very good choice - meaning it is perfectly balanced as is. There is no need to modify it! Except maybe terraforming time which I rightfully doubled and maybe it even need to be tripled but this would be disputable.
If you still want to compare yields to yourself to see if you are using right strategy then I'd suggest to compare average minerals-energy output for conventional and forest bases assuming all nutrient excess is going to support miners. You would have following more or less confined periods:
basic:
2-0.5-2 vs. 1-2-1
condensers/echelon and TF:
3-0.5-3/4 + mines/boreholes vs. 2-2-1
enrichers and HF:
4-0.5-4/5 + mines/boreholes vs. 3-2-2
Post by: Nevill on September 17, 2020, 04:18:08 PM
I found that it works decently well with vanilla improvements, if you adjust a few values and timings.
With forest build times extended, boreholes at 0-2-6, and condenser giving its 50% improved yield there is, in fact, a choice between mass foresting and condensers, mines and boreholes.
Forests fill the niche of a poor man's mine now, yes... that, and energy production. But the latter is subpar.
I place condensers at Gene Splicing, which is a Tier3 tech, and Tree Farms at Planetary Economics, which is Tier6 (using a SMAC tech tree). This allows the player to place a couple strategic condensers early in the game to improve areas particularly affected by draught, but they won't have the former turns to do this on a mass scale and obsolete differences between starting conditions. That comes later, and by the time Tree Farms are available one has a nice array of options to choose from. Forests spreading is nice to have, but it's uncontrollable, and with no Tree Farms they are inferior to better tiles... so my solution is to delay tree farms until former turns are no longer an issue.
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I can't choose to work 6 farm+solars or 3 forests.. i end up with 6 pops for example.. cant get more due to drones and can't grow so i have no use for food.
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To use mines - one need 4 food source, or two 3 food sources - that's hard to get. So it often even makes sense to level the terrain and just use forests instead of mines. The problem is once you level the terrain its forever. Eco damage is issue also once you get multipliers.. thats another go for forests instead of mines.This is why I believe extra food from condensers is important, and wanted the 50% functionality restored. A lot depends on allowing bases create 4-food and later 6-food tiles on demand. It allows some freedom as to what to do with it, be it placing a worker on borehole/mine, or creating a specialist. Which also alleviates the problem of drone control.
This is why orbital facilities are in their place at midgame where the food production stalls and population growth runs into drone issues.
Something needs to be done about growth rates. I'll probably experiment more with reduced intakes/increased yeilds.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on September 17, 2020, 05:04:15 PM
There are about 25 (!!!) different land improvements in this game if we count different yield modification like forest + TF, mining platform + Adv. EcoEng, sea facilities, different fungus yield stages, etc. It is not possible to balance them all perfectly and to everybody's satisfaction. I even consider vanilla setup where boreholes override mines satisfactory enough. Forest in this regard doesn't seem to be completely broken as nobody actually covers all their territory with it even with forest facilities. It is more of other way around. People build forest facilities if they already had forest on infertile land but they don't convert fertile conventional terraforming to forest just because facilities become available.
Regarding condenser nutrient bonus. This encourages placing condenser at every tile as it adds 2 nutrients on top of rainy-farm-enricher and if one place condenser everywhere all tiles will be rainy, obviously. That is madness. Besides favoring just a single specific tile (center) in its 3x3 affecting area disrupts their placement strategy forcing player to value this central tile effect more than the overall moisturizing. If anything it should add nutrient bonuses uniformly for whole area but this would be even bigger madness, apparently.
WTP latest nutrient model with farm adding 2 nutrients seems to solve this mid game stagnation problem. That also effectively reduce an "all forest" approach attractiveness even with TF and HF. Yet it still supports the value of mixed farms+forests approach. So 1) forest are still valuable as mineral-energy source, 2) that modification left forest yield intact which is good for forest lovers.
Post by: Nevill on September 17, 2020, 06:31:54 PM
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This encourages placing condenser at every tile as it adds 2 nutrients on top of rainy-farm-enricher and if one place condenser everywhere all tiles will be rainy, obviously. That is madness.No, because:
a) you only get +1 Nutrient for the first half of the game. Hardly a lot.
b) a tile with condenser is otherwise unworkable. You can't place a mine or a solar on it, making it inferior to its rainy neighbours that can and will get additional enhancements (arguably this also applies to echelon mirrors too, and why they don't see a lot of use - you need to waste tiles)
c) you won't have the former-turns to place them at every tile
d) you need resourses other than food
What you said was theory, here is practice. A screenshot from an MP game with Tayta played at the beginning of the year.
I was playing Edenists, one of his custom factions that has +2 ECON but starts with -2 INDUSTRY. No lack of credits, but minerals are hard to come by. Even then I had a healthy balance between farms, condensers, solars and mines. I had to lean mine-heavy just to offset the penalties, so the left half of the map is pure condensers + mines, while the right half is more energy-oriented.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on September 17, 2020, 07:49:12 PM
b) a tile with condenser is otherwise unworkable. You can't place a mine or a solar on it, making it inferior to its rainy neighbours that can and will get additional enhancements (arguably this also applies to echelon mirrors too, and why they don't see a lot of use - you need to waste tiles)
Placed right it generates up to 9 more food. It is a second best improvement besides 12 FOP vanilla borehole. It doesn't seem it needs extra boost. People still build it even if they can get only +4-5 nutrient by it. And 4 extra nutrients = 2 more mines to support.
Why does it matter that condenser tile is inferior to surrounding ones? Nobody forces you to work it. Work these surrounding tiles instead! 🤨
They benefit from both moisturizing and existing improvements! That makes inability to build an improvement on condenser really minor thing.
a) you only get +1 Nutrient for the first half of the game. Hardly a lot.
Yes, maybe not every tile because other resources are needed. However, you would not deny that it is exceptionally tempting to place it on nutrient resources disregarding its moisturizing use. I just don't find these two functionalities (moisturizing and multiplying) playing well together. Each dictates its own placement strategy confusing player.
If you are in dare need of plain nutrients - why don't add as much as you need to base tile and be done with it? Would benefit all bases equally both human and AI.
Post by: lolada on September 17, 2020, 08:55:34 PM
Similarly, Boreholes were so strong that it was dumb not to have at least 1 per base. Boreholes at 0/4/2 was interesting.. its a good mix of energy and minerals - I would place some of these on arid flat tiles. Its just too much eco damage in general to build them only for 0-2-4.. At 0-2-6 its more interesting for energy strats. Still, 0-4-2 looks like something you would really want for crap bases with no minerals - its hefty for eco dmg and former turns, but you get that "mine" on flat tile. Its not op because it can't be spammed and i am cool with limiting them on no slopes.
I don't think Condensers need buff - how about making them easier to build, in fewer former turns. You said Adv. Engineering comes before Tree forests - but i guess trading can turn everything around. I kind of don't jump on spamming Condensers like i jump on Tree forests - maybe its my playstyle.
Anyway, I like this state of terraforming more than old op Condensers, Boreholes so i would not revert those back... How about just maybe delaying Tree forest one tech in future ^^.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on September 17, 2020, 09:09:44 PM
1. 0-2-6, 18 turns. Decent energy output and some minerals for not too much time.
2. 0-4-2. 24 turns. Slightly better to mines due to extra energy but about double work.
First choice is more desirable as it has clear focus. Second one still competes with mines and confuses both human and AI.
Post by: Nexii on December 19, 2020, 01:20:19 AM
I think the goal would be to keep farm/solar competitive at each game stage vs forest. Meaning the upgrades like condensor, enricher, echelon would need to be close in tech to respective tree farm, hybrid forest, borehole.
As well in SMAX I felt sea tiles were incredibly strong once you start nerfing down OP boreholes. Aquafarm and thermoclines shouldn't be as early as they are.
My feelings so far:
Probably boreholes should be no more than 0/4/4
Probably 6N condensors are a bit much as well
Probably fungus should be the best very late-game terrain
Probably Weather Paradigm should come later, unlocking everything with a T1 SP is broken. Though resource caps are one option to limit that
Probably more N early isn't so bad, but I feel more E might encourage vertical growth more than N. As more N just allows faster horizontal ICS as well
Probably land tiles should be more valuable than sea. Sea forming never takes many turns
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 19, 2020, 03:28:25 AM
I think the goal would be to keep farm/solar competitive at each game stage vs forest. Meaning the upgrades like condensor, enricher, echelon would need to be close in tech to respective tree farm, hybrid forest, borehole.
Don't worry about forest. It is ever balanced improvement that never be OP or UP just because its unique flat yield. Other improvements are incremental. So they will never beat forest on low/flat/arid tiles nor forest beat regular terraforming on yield reach tiles. It does not compete with farm/solar. It will always have its niche and will never wander out of it much.
As well in SMAX I felt sea tiles were incredibly strong once you start nerfing down OP boreholes. Aquafarm and thermoclines shouldn't be as early as they are.
Agree about aquafarm. That is why I made it last to come among aquatic facilities and moved it to later mid game.
Thermoclines - eh, I don't think it is too OP affecting just half of the tiles. Remember, this is the only energy improvement sea bases can have for the whole game and it gives just +1 energy per each second tile. Land bases have like unlimited number of tools to increase energy output and they discover more and more and more until finally they beat sea bases in energy output! So why don't give sea bases at least some temporary advantage? It'll encourage multiplying facility building.
Same advise about balancing sea vs. land bases. They are just drastically different. Don't try to fine tune balance them because there is no a single measure for them both everybody would agree upon. The only criteria is practical test. If ocean faction beat land based on a regular basis then it is time to rebalance something. Otherwise, let it be. Each one has its ins and outs.
The good example would be a vanilla insane aquatic mineral bonus. With it Pirates always came out first or second in the first half of the game - always! With its removal in WTP I don't see sea expansion OP anymore for anybody.
Probably 6N condensors are a bit much as well
Why everybody are so concerned about condensers? They do not GIVE anything by themselves. They just improve terrain making it more fertile but not beyond what other fertile land bases already have! Effectively, player just pay a price to make their unfortunate bases less unfortunate. It is not an extra bonus on top of anything. Similarly you may deny building colonies on fertile lands or in jungle.
Probably fungus should be the best very late-game terrain
Understandable lore wise but late game rarely occurs, as everybody already mentioned million times. We need it to be functional at least in the middle to be interesting at all.
Probably Weather Paradigm should come later, unlocking everything with a T1 SP is broken. Though resource caps are one option to limit that
How did you figure? Did you notice that one who build it always win? Try to gather at least some statistics. Otherwise, Peter says yes, Bob says no - and conversation ends there.
It is a good project and it feels very powerful in theory but it quite difficult to capitalize it. Everybody can build it from tier 1 but nobody does. Expansion goes first. Takes quite some time to build it with small early bases: 40 turns even with 10 minerals income on rocky mineral which is extremely lucky to have. So one get it on turn 60 or maybe 50 if determined enough. Other factions already get aquifer at turn ~30, boreholes at turn ~60. The only thing WP owner is going to enjoy exclusively for some time is mirrors and raise terrain which is again only super useful only for large base with dense population. Good return for project cost but hardly OP.
Probably more N early isn't so bad, but I feel more E might encourage vertical growth more than N. As more N just allows faster horizontal ICS as well
Agree. That is actually why I gave aquifers and boreholes early. Enjoy!
Probably land tiles should be more valuable than sea. Sea forming never takes many turns
The speed at which improvement are built is infinitely minor factor comparing to yield. That is why everybody are trying to balance improvement yields. NOT the yield/turn ratio.
The former cost and maintenance is 100 times cheaper than their terraforming benefits. The amount of work puts a limit to former fleet, not the burden of building it.
Simple mental experiment. Let's compare two boreholes: 1) vanilla 0-6-6 for 24 turns and 2) doubled 0-12-12 for 48 turns. Given the choice what would you build? Second one, of course. Just double formers fleet and doubled yield would pay off for it in no time and then such faction will just blow own yield out of proportion.
Post by: MercantileInterest on January 26, 2021, 06:23:11 PM
(1) Citizens only eat 1 nutrient a turn.
(2) Farms provide +2 nutrients.
(3) Sea tiles provide 2 nutrients but kelp only adds +1.
(4) Bases reach up to size 12 before requiring a hab complex.
Now this speeds up base growth a large amount; balanced out by making colony pods much more expensive.
(5) Colony pods cost ~150 minerals (cost in txt is 28. Don't know how that comes out to 150 but it does.)
(6) Psych specialists only provide +1 psych, rather than the traditional +2.
(7) Pop booming requires 1 higher growth rating than vanilla. (Think this is only possible using Will to Power.) This means factions can only boom with golden ages in the early game. Later, can build cloning vats or use the extra growth future society.
Because golden ages can't happen until a base reaches size 3, new bases cannot boom. The Hive has +1 growth by default, so can still boom. Morgan can use my default econ setting, which gives +1 growth and -1 planet, to boom. If you're not booming, all the extra nutrients mean you'll still be growing at a healthy pace. The difficulty in building new colony pods very much pushes factions towards vertical growth.
(8.) Had to design a custom unit so sea colony pods weren't outrageously overpriced.
Post by: Nexii on February 10, 2021, 06:34:52 PM
Colony pods costing more is probably a good start to reducing ICS a bit. Make it more of a decision whether to build up existing cities rather than the current "fill all my territory then build up" paradigm.
Also, lower facility costs and maintenance. I went back to Civ2 and it had similar problems, a lot of facilities just weren't worth it. Which is sort of a bad thing because it means the associated techs are worthless.
Satellites are probably the biggest offender of all. +1/+1/+1 to all base squares is super strong. They should come later in the game.
Terraforming I think is less flawed. Borehole at 12 FOP is the only thing that really sticks out. 0/4/4 is probably a sufficient nerf.