From what I can see from let's plays, reading this forum, first impressions from others, etc is that this game is a solid game, with fun military management and a new take on job/role based citizen management that is very intuitive.
But the problems I see that I hope to be addressed are: lategame tech pace, lack of good AI priorities for unit design management, build order, etc/mass spam of tier 1 units. I also see that the game itself feels very vanilla and is lacking significant depth in much else besides the design workshop. I hope expansions/patches (whether free or bought) address this. Another gripe is that it seems to just have attempted to carbon copy alpha centauri's characters but made them lack the atmosphere/realism of the originals, but I can't really expect some small indie dev to be able to do what brian reynolds and a professional studio with voice actors etc can do.
What I'm wondering is, is new content ever planned for this game? Expansions? I'm guessing the small gripes about late game tech and unit design will be fixed in upcoming patches, but my concern is I won't get much playtime out of this beyond one or two games worth because it simply... lacks the large amount of content/depth that I'm used to. I honestly could probably say the same thing about most 4x games at release though, but I think everyone kinda knew stuff like civ 5 was going to have expansions, though. Whether I can expect that from proxy or not, I dunno.
Again I probably won't know until I "jump in" and actually play but I've watched significant amounts of videos and whatnot and that seems to be my general impression.
General Impressions if/before I buy/questions
Moderators: Pandora Moderators, Slitherine Core
Re: General Impressions if/before I buy/questions
They are maybe not as fast as some big developer but they are only a few so we have to be realistic. Found bugs are patched very quickly from my experience. Balancing proposals or like now the AI improvements from Xilmi are integrated surprisingly fast (some AI changes are already in the Beta now just a few days after Xilmi posted his mod).
As for new content, Void (one of the devs) has already posted here that there will be an anouncement soon. From german live events with Void earlier this year we know that they are planning sea terraforming and more different aliens already.
As for new content, Void (one of the devs) has already posted here that there will be an anouncement soon. From german live events with Void earlier this year we know that they are planning sea terraforming and more different aliens already.
Re: General Impressions if/before I buy/questions
I think a lot of what you write is true, but you absolutely don't need to worry that the game keeps your interrest for just one or two games. If you are used to playing Civ and AC, you really have to get used to the novell economic system in order to play this game succesfully. You can't play it like Civ/AC, you will loose. Combined with the alien agression, this will already require multiple games to learn just how to make your civilization survive at all on Panodra. While the AI has flaws, it definetely gives you challenge as an unexperienced player. Learning how to prevent them crushing you the next task. And lastly, the Messari are an interresting midgame challenge that also needs some strategic skill to handle well.
Re: General Impressions if/before I buy/questions
Most of your concerns are kinda justified.
But certainly not the one about a lack of depth.
The, as you call it "new take on job/role based citizen management" imho raises Pandora above all other 4x I am aware of.
The amount of control and decision-making this gives you is just much more impactful without making it a micro-fest or feeling tedious.
Late-game-tech pace could easily be fixed by nerfing the late-game science-buildings.
AI-priorities is modable and I suppose that once I can finally access the 1.4.2-beta and play around with the new mechanisms, I could make a suggestion of how it should be done.
I see a lot of potential in this as in 1.4.1 tweaking the values already reaped great benefits.
Another thing this game has going for it is it's stability. I personally haven't encountered any noticeable bugs.
The best videos about this imho are the ones from Writing Bull who hosted a multi-player-game including one of the devs in observer-mode and let the players all explain their different approaches. This shows much better how much impact the decisions can have, since one player will mostly do the same stuff all the time and you won't really get to see how differently things could have turned out.
Unfortunately it's all in german.
But certainly not the one about a lack of depth.
The, as you call it "new take on job/role based citizen management" imho raises Pandora above all other 4x I am aware of.
The amount of control and decision-making this gives you is just much more impactful without making it a micro-fest or feeling tedious.
Late-game-tech pace could easily be fixed by nerfing the late-game science-buildings.
AI-priorities is modable and I suppose that once I can finally access the 1.4.2-beta and play around with the new mechanisms, I could make a suggestion of how it should be done.
I see a lot of potential in this as in 1.4.1 tweaking the values already reaped great benefits.
Another thing this game has going for it is it's stability. I personally haven't encountered any noticeable bugs.
The best videos about this imho are the ones from Writing Bull who hosted a multi-player-game including one of the devs in observer-mode and let the players all explain their different approaches. This shows much better how much impact the decisions can have, since one player will mostly do the same stuff all the time and you won't really get to see how differently things could have turned out.
Unfortunately it's all in german.
Re: General Impressions if/before I buy/questions
Is the game worth buying outside of multiplayer? Because I sure don't plan on playing that much, and that's why I have concerns about the AI. The depth I'm talking about is just.. fleshing out the existing systems or adding new ones. The only two parts of the game I can see as having significant depth are the workshop (which isn't even as complex as AC's) and the citizen management. I hope they add some more.. well, stuff. More mechanics, and more ways to make factions feel... different, besides stat changes. Wonders would be nice, too.Xilmi wrote:Most of your concerns are kinda justified.
But certainly not the one about a lack of depth.
The, as you call it "new take on job/role based citizen management" imho raises Pandora above all other 4x I am aware of.
The amount of control and decision-making this gives you is just much more impactful without making it a micro-fest or feeling tedious.
Late-game-tech pace could easily be fixed by nerfing the late-game science-buildings.
AI-priorities is modable and I suppose that once I can finally access the 1.4.2-beta and play around with the new mechanisms, I could make a suggestion of how it should be done.
I see a lot of potential in this as in 1.4.1 tweaking the values already reaped great benefits.
Another thing this game has going for it is it's stability. I personally haven't encountered any noticeable bugs.
The best videos about this imho are the ones from Writing Bull who hosted a multi-player-game including one of the devs in observer-mode and let the players all explain their different approaches. This shows much better how much impact the decisions can have, since one player will mostly do the same stuff all the time and you won't really get to see how differently things could have turned out.
Unfortunately it's all in german.
I think, either way, from what I've heard, it's a good game and worth a buy so I'll probably be buying it, but I'm just expressing my concerns (even if I can't really justify my knowledge because I have yet to buy it.)
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MattyLatty
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Re: General Impressions if/before I buy/questions
What do you mean by "build orders". Is it due to the overwhelming factor of not knowing what to build and in what orders?
Re: General Impressions if/before I buy/questions
Sentence formatting mess-up on my part. I meant the AI has build-order problems, which is based on what Xilmi has said in other threads.MattyLatty wrote:What do you mean by "build orders". Is it due to the overwhelming factor of not knowing what to build and in what orders?
Re: General Impressions if/before I buy/questions
AI is currently garbage and doesn't provide any challenge for a decent player. The last patch addressed the issue but it's a just a tiny fix and the AI is still far from basic competency.
There is hope though. The fix in last patch was basically the first step in AI improvement so it should get better in the next few patches.
There is hope though. The fix in last patch was basically the first step in AI improvement so it should get better in the next few patches.
Re: General Impressions if/before I buy/questions
With "the last patch" you mean 1.4.2 which after more than a week is still not available for steam-users?
I really don't get this 2-class-society with one half having access to the beta-patches and the other half not.
I'd like to continue development of my mod but it simply doesn't make sense if I base it on an obsolete version.
Also I wouldn't call the AI "garbage". That is utterly unconstructive and insulting to those who made it.
Instead of saying something like that, it would be way better to name the points where it should be improved.
One thing I like about it is how it spreads it's units and attacks from different sides.
Here's some things that I see potential for improvement outside of the buildorder-side of the game, of which I know can be modded anyways:
The AI does not go science-heavy in quite phases of the game. They mine as much as they can and then turn the crystals into stuff as much as they can. This means their science is very depending on their surrounding. If they have a lot of Mountains, they will do very little science.
In my oppinion they should consider to stop spamming units if they feel they have enough and then reallocate miners and factory-workers to science.
The question to ask is "When should they feel they have enough". I'd say if they are at peace and noone hates them, this should occur sooner than when they are at war and need all the units they can make. It should probably depend on the "Fight-strategy-score-multiplier". It goes lower the more units the AI has. With the lowering of this factor the amount of people working as scientist should increase.
Another thing are the tile-improvements. Especially the farms. The AI will turn every grassland or tropical into a farm. No matter if it needs them or not. AI should be able to count the potential >=3-food tiles in it's empire, calculate the need and then only get as many as it needs. Of course this amount will change when the population growth but it can then still adjust the tiles when the actual need changes. For safety reasons it could add like +10% more farms than it's calculated need. But while it doesn't need more >=3-food-tiles it should use these tiles for Research- and Industry-improvements. Right now AI only ever does this on 1-food-no-mineral-tiles.
I'm not sure about this, but I think I've seen Terra-Salvum-AI to chop down forrests on hills to build mines there. If this is true, then I think I don't have to tell you what to think about this that is.
Later in the game the AI will spam a lot of useless cities which only drain valuable ressources to get their infrastructure up. The decision wheather to build or not to build a new city should be a function of remaining-living-room. I'd say something like "Only expand if the relation of available-living-space to used-up-living-space is less than 1:4". However, I'm not sure about city-spamming being that bad. Each new city means an additional base for operations like Nukes and Blackholes, so this has to be considered aswell and thus one can't simply say that cities in bad locations are entirely bad.
AI is unable to adjust tax-rate as it seems. They will always run 50% all the time. Here's 2 algorithms that should be considered. I've seen Zak0r use them and am trying to implement them myself:
If happyness in a city is below 0 taxes should be reduced as much as to get it back to 0 unless it would mean running out of cash, of course.
If happyness in a city is above 0 taxes should be increased up to the point it is back at 0. According to Zak0r the additional cash most of the time is more useful than the slight bonus to the other ressources. But one could run some math here on a case to case basis, if it really is true. I think it depends on the tech level of the predominantly used boosters. For example if a city has Era 3 mines but only an Era 2 cash-boost, then most likely boosting the output of the mines is more valueable overall.
I really don't get this 2-class-society with one half having access to the beta-patches and the other half not.
I'd like to continue development of my mod but it simply doesn't make sense if I base it on an obsolete version.
Also I wouldn't call the AI "garbage". That is utterly unconstructive and insulting to those who made it.
Instead of saying something like that, it would be way better to name the points where it should be improved.
One thing I like about it is how it spreads it's units and attacks from different sides.
Here's some things that I see potential for improvement outside of the buildorder-side of the game, of which I know can be modded anyways:
The AI does not go science-heavy in quite phases of the game. They mine as much as they can and then turn the crystals into stuff as much as they can. This means their science is very depending on their surrounding. If they have a lot of Mountains, they will do very little science.
In my oppinion they should consider to stop spamming units if they feel they have enough and then reallocate miners and factory-workers to science.
The question to ask is "When should they feel they have enough". I'd say if they are at peace and noone hates them, this should occur sooner than when they are at war and need all the units they can make. It should probably depend on the "Fight-strategy-score-multiplier". It goes lower the more units the AI has. With the lowering of this factor the amount of people working as scientist should increase.
Another thing are the tile-improvements. Especially the farms. The AI will turn every grassland or tropical into a farm. No matter if it needs them or not. AI should be able to count the potential >=3-food tiles in it's empire, calculate the need and then only get as many as it needs. Of course this amount will change when the population growth but it can then still adjust the tiles when the actual need changes. For safety reasons it could add like +10% more farms than it's calculated need. But while it doesn't need more >=3-food-tiles it should use these tiles for Research- and Industry-improvements. Right now AI only ever does this on 1-food-no-mineral-tiles.
I'm not sure about this, but I think I've seen Terra-Salvum-AI to chop down forrests on hills to build mines there. If this is true, then I think I don't have to tell you what to think about this that is.
Later in the game the AI will spam a lot of useless cities which only drain valuable ressources to get their infrastructure up. The decision wheather to build or not to build a new city should be a function of remaining-living-room. I'd say something like "Only expand if the relation of available-living-space to used-up-living-space is less than 1:4". However, I'm not sure about city-spamming being that bad. Each new city means an additional base for operations like Nukes and Blackholes, so this has to be considered aswell and thus one can't simply say that cities in bad locations are entirely bad.
AI is unable to adjust tax-rate as it seems. They will always run 50% all the time. Here's 2 algorithms that should be considered. I've seen Zak0r use them and am trying to implement them myself:
If happyness in a city is below 0 taxes should be reduced as much as to get it back to 0 unless it would mean running out of cash, of course.
If happyness in a city is above 0 taxes should be increased up to the point it is back at 0. According to Zak0r the additional cash most of the time is more useful than the slight bonus to the other ressources. But one could run some math here on a case to case basis, if it really is true. I think it depends on the tech level of the predominantly used boosters. For example if a city has Era 3 mines but only an Era 2 cash-boost, then most likely boosting the output of the mines is more valueable overall.
Re: General Impressions if/before I buy/questions
Cash is good because you can buy newly researched buildings right away and reap the benefits a few turns earlier. Especially for science cities this is great because you don't have to change scientists to workers to build a new lab and switch them back to science after.
Changing taxes is also useful if you can finish a project (construction or science) a little earlier by adjusting taxes. I mostly start my game with growth til 3 pop while researching a building and then switching to production to build it. In the same round when it is finished the next research should be ready. Lowering taxes for a small morale bonus can make the difference in this micromanagement. If you gathered some credits you can also rush the last turns to make it work.
Changing taxes is also useful if you can finish a project (construction or science) a little earlier by adjusting taxes. I mostly start my game with growth til 3 pop while researching a building and then switching to production to build it. In the same round when it is finished the next research should be ready. Lowering taxes for a small morale bonus can make the difference in this micromanagement. If you gathered some credits you can also rush the last turns to make it work.
Re: General Impressions if/before I buy/questions
It's you and other steamboys who made this 2-class-society. Cancel your Steam account and join the anti-drm resistance for a 1-class free pc.Xilmi wrote: last patch 1.4.2 after more than a week is still not available for steam-users?
I really don't get this 2-class-society with one half having access to the beta-patches and the other half not.
I'd like to continue development of my mod but it simply doesn't make sense if I base it on an obsolete version.
LifeHole, don't be worry, the game deserves being better, but it is some good for now.
Re: General Impressions if/before I buy/questions
Just wanted to step by and say that my issue has been resolved. ^^