1.16 change feedback

[boulugre]

Alien aggressiveness on high setting is now a real threat, I found that I had to delay my second city until I built a small force of tanks as I was usually losing the second city if i didn't. I like it but I am not sure AI is coping well with that as it seems their city were comparatively small to mine once i discovered them.

On the AI development and behavior I am not really impressed, I played a continent game medium map on very high AI difficulty as the religious faction. I swallowed the neighboring Morganite faction and solar dynasty swallowed the Imperium faction on his island. On the third continent the ecological and research faction lived in peace the entire game.
As usual solar dynasty became really huge and once I completed the transcendence age upgrades I went in an all out war with them. They didn't put on much of a fight and I wiped them in only 4 turns, without even using black holes. As usual they had loooads of crappy infantry units running around and they just started producing serious transcendence units when the war started, way to late to make a difference.

What was even more disappointing is the green and research faction. They stayed in peace the entire game and had an entire continent for them to expand but they just sat there in a few city ( the research faction only having 3 cities..), beeing really late in the research race. They were so underdeveloped than I won a military victory once I took over solar dynasty cities, despite having 2 other factions left on the map.

[Apheirox]

I think with 1.1.6 the game is lots better than it was just a few weeks back. Aliens pillaging improvements and their aggression based on player behaviour makes so much sense. Also very nice to see tax rates fixed and Colonization Fervor no longer being a tech you have to rush immediately each game. Excellent stuff!

With regard to 'lack' of player aggression: I think this is about the size of habitat improvements - there's simply too little pressure to expand because there's lots of room in each city. It isn't until the transcendence era (which, I say it again, passes by much too fast) that the entire map gets covered with cities. In other 4x games you're going to war because you need more land so you turn to your opponents' - in Pandora, you only go to war to conquer more population, never because you've run out of space.

IMO focus of next updates should be diplomacy, however. Diplomacy is totally broken: AIs will praise then denounce, demand tribute then shower the player in gifts (why the gifts?). It's totally random and out of control what goes on. Diplomacy should be dictated more by who is neighbouring who and the struggle for land/resources so that neighbours tend to have bad relations. Also, alliances should have some meaningful effect so that they actually mean allied players are obliged to defend each other.

[jdmillard]

IMO focus of next updates should be diplomacy, however. Diplomacy is totally broken: AIs will praise then denounce, demand tribute then shower the player in gifts (why the gifts?). It's totally random and out of control what goes on. Diplomacy should be dictated more by who is neighbouring who and the struggle for land/resources so that neighbours tend to have bad relations. Also, alliances should have some meaningful effect so that they actually mean allied players are obliged to defend each other.

I agree. I think alliances should be a little more possible to make. AI only accept alliances if they are getting owned by their neighbor. Or they demand all your money. I think it should be based more off of mutual diplomatic relations. If we both hate Faction XYZ, the likelihood of an alliance ought to be increased.

[boulugre]

IMO focus of next updates should be diplomacy, however. Diplomacy is totally broken: AIs will praise then denounce, demand tribute then shower the player in gifts (why the gifts?). It's totally random and out of control what goes on. Diplomacy should be dictated more by who is neighbouring who and the struggle for land/resources so that neighbours tend to have bad relations. Also, alliances should have some meaningful effect so that they actually mean allied players are obliged to defend each other.

I agree. I think alliances should be a little more possible to make. AI only accept alliances if they are getting owned by their neighbor. Or they demand all your money. I think it should be based more off of mutual diplomatic relations. If we both hate Faction XYZ, the likelihood of an alliance ought to be increased.

Yup I absolutely agree. Dev mentioned they would last patch to come with an option to make other faction declare war on each other, that would be a very handy option.

[ErissN6]

Aliens pillaging improvements and their aggression based on player behaviour makes so much sense.

Yes, but not all improvements should be pillaged, only those damaging the land (not fungus nor forests, at least).

In other 4x games you're going to war because you need more land so you turn to your opponents'

I'm fine with this, Pandora don't have to be like others.

Diplomacy should be dictated more by who is neighbouring who and the struggle for land/resources so that neighbours tend to have bad relations. Also, alliances should have some meaningful effect so that they actually mean allied players are obliged to defend each other.

Diplomacy should have a big memory too. It should be compute not on the moment only, but including all that happened since the beggining.

[boulugre]

Aliens pillaging improvements and their aggression based on player behaviour makes so much sense.

Yes, but not all improvements should be pillaged, only those damaging the land (not fungus nor forests, at least).

Aliens does not pillage forest and Fungus, actually I think they can't, only former can remove/add them.

[ErissN6]

The Workers (name?) often seem to not automatically go resume working once they have settled back to town.
I sometimes take a Worker and bring it in country to make its working order obeyed. Or maybe I didn't really understand how its working..

[ErissN6]

Sometimes, when a town both grows and build in same turn, when we launch a new built, it is not shown (saved?) in its next city window when we click on the 2nd event (in the up right corner of the main window) of this town.

[ErissN6]

Events on the main window should be grouped per town, then per sort of event, and we must be able to remove them by these groups.
Thereby, it will be more easy to tick them when 10 enemy towns bomb 10 units in a town... = 100 messages...

[ErissN6]

I had a weird victory.
Huge size, Continent shape, Medium aggression, Marathon pace, 6 players, I play the Gardeneer (playing solo againt IAs).
I met one IA, which died first even I never attacked him. All his towns seem having disappear, I mean not conquiered: destroyed.
Then tree others IAs died, that I had never met them.
Maybe all died for the aliens went very ennoying for many turns, and that's why I had to build many units to defend my towns and builders.
Then the aliens almost no longer spawn, and by Turn 390 I had a Military victory, without attacking any other players!
I had only about 6 towns.
An IA was still living, that I never met.
I can send my save, if interesting.

By the way, how can we come back to the end window?, to see the end results again.

[boulugre]

In MP game with more than 2 player, when you send a private message to somebody, the chat system doesnt display to the receiving player that it is a private message.

This can get confusing when you have a private conversation going on at the same time than a global one, would be nice to see when the message was intented to you only.

[Fimconte]

I'm somewhat conflicted on the pillaging, I think overall it's a nice addition since you need to defend your holdings.
However I think it would be better if it would take 1 turn to pillage / finish on the next turn (regardless of moves) as sometimes a 3 move unit or a Alien Flier will swoop in and instantly pillage a border tile from outside the FoW.

Currently this serves no real purpose beyond being simply annoying.
If my military can kill them I'll do so the next turn, if I can't then the pillage will go through just fine (no move cost next turn).

Perhaps add a new Device that allows units to pillage and move ("Raider" module).

Alternatively/additionally, I think if Forts (or alternatively a new improvement; Radar Station/Outpost) would clear FoW on their own, there would be more incentive to build them outside your borders as early warning stations.
If possible, make them belong to the faction who built them and capturable if not defended.

Right now I only find them useful in two situations:
a) If I know a enemy is coming and a extremely good defensive position is between my cities and him.
b) Staging Grounds/Regroup positions near AI I'm about to attack.

Sadly both of these situations don't happen often enough.