Author Topic: do chemical weapons cause eco-damage? (Read 6395 times)

bvanevery · « **Reply #45 on:** March 28, 2018, 03:09:21 AM »

Somebody please kick me that I turned the bell curve back on?

kick me

I just lost 1100 credits to that. Basically, the cost of The Planetary Transit System that I was getting ready to rush. My income is only 7 credits/turn so that does hurt a lot. All that money is a lot of dead mindworms.

I quit. This is getting old. Now I know what happens, and I could fully prepare myself if I were so inclined. I did ok partially prepared, the mindworms aren't going to crack my main territory. But that flooding... I just lost 3 Formers to that, on a river bed. Cheap Formers, but still.

Quote from: bvanevery on March 26, 2018, 10:45:55 PM

Let's see if there's any reason to care.

Um, yeah.

I didn't believe in the whole idea of chemical warfare causing eco-damage. It most certainly does. And it's a persistent, spammy damage that's highly annoying. My progress against the Pirates has been really slow, due to all the spam. I had to delay building The Planetary Transit System because I needed to keep on cranking out as many Empath Recon Rovers as possible. Miriam actually started building it; that's annoying.

And, uh, this game 'feature' is deeply irrational. Planet cries for humans, doesn't cry for Aliens. Clearly not concerned about the actual deadly chemicals spilling on the ground. !@#$ you Planet!! You're an @$$4073.

Next up, a bleeding heart liberal SMAC that deals with the environmental consequences of Depleted Uranium rounds.

Vishniac · « **Reply #46 on:** March 28, 2018, 09:54:55 PM »

Quote from: bvanevery on March 26, 2018, 10:45:55 PM

Umm why would I wait that long?

It would have made it much funnier.

With 1 rover attack, you can kill a full stack of worms. It doesn't work with Isles of the Deep and, if you already have Air Power, they are accompanied by swarms of locusts. Good luck to kill everything! If you don't know in advance, your naval bases suffer major casualties (pop and infrastructure).
First time it happened, all my cities of 14-16 pop were reduced to 2, 1 or even destroyed in 2 turns.
WORM APOCALYPSE!

bvanevery · « **Reply #47 on:** March 28, 2018, 10:27:43 PM »

I've fought big stacks of Isles at sea before. Artillery is rather effective against them. It can kill a whole stack if you've got a 2 or 3 pieces to strike with.

The thing I don't like about this game "design" is there doesn't seem to be any relief from the onslaught. They don't seem to calm down. With industrial pollution, you can weather the storm of fungal pops and eventually you'll be left alone, if you don't do any more damage. Chemical weapons seems to be a moralizing verdict that you're an evil, evil person and must spend the entire rest of the game suffering. Unless of course you find a way to make the mindworm spamming a permanent profit center. Even then, I'm not sure that having to deal with them every turn is much of a game to play. Seems to be a substantial loss of player agency if all of your responses are determined for you.

Fibonacci · « **Reply #48 on:** March 29, 2018, 01:06:56 AM »

I'm reminded of Terry Pratchett's Only You Can Save Mankind. The "game" wins if the player stops playing.

bvanevery · « **Reply #49 on:** March 29, 2018, 06:19:49 AM »

I may try a prepared go at deliberate mindworm apocalypse, probably with the Pirates as I've been contemplating a "drown everyone" game for awhile now. But there are things that put me off about the exercise, and today I instead managed to research a lot of stuff about 4X TBS gaming forums. And a tiny amount of programming language design. And a movie, "The Reluctant Fundamentalist". In short, I found better things to do. I even wonder if trying to win Emperor of the Fading Suns is a better thing to do.

Buster's Uncle · « **Reply #50 on:** March 29, 2018, 01:12:18 PM »

Quote from: bvanevery on March 29, 2018, 06:19:49 AM

I instead managed to research a lot of stuff about 4X TBS gaming forums.

Rec Commons or Other Games, depending on your druthers w/ results/conclusions. Interested.

bvanevery · « **Reply #51 on:** March 30, 2018, 07:26:35 PM »

Quote from: bvanevery on March 29, 2018, 06:19:49 AM

I may try a prepared go at deliberate mindworm apocalypse, probably with the Pirates as I've been contemplating a "drown everyone" game for awhile now.

I tried it, on an "Enormous" 80x160 map. It defiitely had a lot of the feeling of isolation of a 128x256 Giant map, with some factions too tedious to get to. However, I did have the University, the Caretakers, and the Usurpers as near neighbors. Not near enough to get into direct conflict unless I wanted to though. This game seemed to follow the "clumping in 1 corner" placement dynamic, which definitely can occur at 80x160, although it's not a certainty.

I went Free Market, hoping this would do enough eco-damage to start the flooding. It didn't. I got a few fungal pops before I got very bored and quit. I deliberately did not develop any land, even though I started next to the Monsoon Jungle. I had cities at size 13 and had finished a bunch of Research Hospitals when I quit. The whole game was a concerted exercise in waiting. If I make my own 4X TBS title, I must find a solution for that.

When I start again, I will use chemical weapons early and often. They are a reliable way to do seemingly permanent and sustainable eco-damage. Way faster than getting to nukes, I wasn't remotely near Orbital Spaceflight. That's a big part of why I quit. I had been waiting a long time and still no nukes. Wealth gets your facilities built but isn't the fast lane to nukes.

I debate using the Caretakers instead of the Pirates. On the positive side, I could target nukes more directly. On the negative side, when the land floods I might have to convert to a sea empire, with no special advantages in that regard. Also I'm not sure that using chemical weapons against anyone actually matters when you're an Alien. Someone hates you for it, but I don't think there's any eco-damage.

Vishniac · « **Reply #52 on:** March 31, 2018, 09:46:23 AM »

Quote from: bvanevery on March 30, 2018, 07:26:35 PM

I went Free Market, hoping this would do enough eco-damage to start the flooding. It didn't. I got a few fungal pops before I got very bored and quit. I deliberately did not develop any land, even though I started next to the Monsoon Jungle. I had cities at size 13 and had finished a bunch of Research Hospitals when I quit. The whole game was a concerted exercise in waiting. If I make my own 4X TBS title, I must find a solution for that.

When I start again, I will use chemical weapons early and often. They are a reliable way to do seemingly permanent and sustainable eco-damage.

I am not at all sure of it, that's why I told you of how it happened to me late in the game.
But, judging by some current game, you can go up to 26 gas attacks (estimated by the years of sanctions), have no tree farm or other control facility and still have zero ecodamage in every base.

Maybe there's a threshold in time before it all adds up suddenly or something like that.
Maybe there's a threshold at 30 attacks.
As for flooding, I think it requires more than one faction to start: more like 5-6 factions with 20 bases cranking up minerals
We should ask Mart to know how it's written in the code.

bvanevery · « **Reply #53 on:** March 31, 2018, 01:29:13 PM »

Quote from: Vishniac on March 31, 2018, 09:46:23 AM

As for flooding, I think it requires more than one faction to start: more like 5-6 factions with 20 bases cranking up minerals

Nah. In the game I took screenshots of, I clearly did all the damage myself. The year is only 2249 when I quit. The other dominant player on the map was the Believers and they didn't have any tech. Also I don't think they went Free Market, I think they were Fundamentalist Planned. It takes a long time for other factions to do enough eco-damage to trigger a flood. I can attest to that from having played many games where I was doing 0 eco-damage and some faction all the way across the map finally gets around to ruining everything.

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Author Topic: do chemical weapons cause eco-damage? (Read 6395 times)

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