First impressions 0.10.0

[azpops]

1) Color blind so can't see the new color scheme, but thanks for leaving the terrain the same. I can still tell the hex terrain type.

2) Research times. Every thing is double what the time says on the item chosen to research. If the item says it takes one turn to research, it takes two. If it needs two turns, it takes four.

[SephiRok]

Fixed research times, should be live in a few.

[azpops]

Research times. Every thing is double what the time says on the item chosen to research. If the item says it takes one turn to research, it takes two. If it needs two turns, it takes four.

OK, let me correct that. I paid a little bit better attention the second game. Research times are time plus one turn. The times count down to one turn, then the last turn takes two turns. For example: Research time is three turns. Counting down research time 3 and 2 are fine. When the research time gets down to 1 turn, the turns ends, no research completed and the research count stays at 1 until the next turn is finished when the research is completed.

Research time is whatever is listed plus one turn.

[SephiRok]

That's fine, I knew what was wrong. It will be fixed once the hamsters digest the code and deliver it to you.

[azpops]

OK, that latest quick fix has it working right now.

[azpops]

Some additional comments:

1) Like ability to rename cities and units.

2) Like the new system of purchasing units. Can still do it but can't do as much or as fast as cost becomes prohibitive/run out of credits.

3) Polllution. One of my pet peeves. I need to play more to make sure it is not me, but so far the increase in pollution rate is really turning me away from the game. I'm not interested in a game in which I spend hours simply building formers to try to keep the pollution down and in-between formers building combat units fast enough to keep the formers alive to keep the pollution down. Why or why do you need to have pollution so early in the game? If you simply can't live without it in the game at least give the player time to have the option of putting research time and build time into keeping the pollution down. The pollution so much and so early in the game is really beginning to make me lose interest in the game.

[SephiRok]

Hours building Formers to keep the pollution down? You must be playing very different, because I never have pollution issues. Can you help me understand why you're having problems with it? Maybe attach a save so I can take a look?

P.S. You surely have some tools to combat it besides formers. Not going mad with farms and mines helps, planting forests helps even more. Early in the game pollution takes twice as long, after you can build -pollution buildings.

Regards,
Rok

[azpops]

I was playing the Noxium Corporation. I was at turn 85. My headquarters city had expanded out to a two hex range. I had three formers running full time trying to keep up with the pollution and an additional former that I was building hoping to upgrade some of the hexes. I had one mine and two farms built, three hexes as forest and an additional hex was Gaia Forest. I was trying to keep two combat units on each former in order to keep it alive from the aliens (and not very successful at that). I had built two colonizers and sent them out with two combat unit to build new cities. I lost one to a double Galeth attack and was about to lose the other to another multiple Galeth attack. At that point I gave up. I no longer have the file as I started a new game.

[SephiRok]

Hm, that sounds like it's more a difficulty / tech related issue. Double Galeth attack sounds like one of the most unlucky setups. I assume your formers were dying, that's why the pollution was being a pain. Unless I'm missing something, I can't believe you need more than 1 former per city just to clear pollution. Maybe try the lowest alien aggression level?

[azpops]

Hm, that sounds like it's more a difficulty / tech related issue. Double Galeth attack sounds like one of the most unlucky setups. I assume your formers were dying, that's why the pollution was being a pain. Unless I'm missing something, I can't believe you need more than 1 former per city just to clear pollution. Maybe try the lowest alien aggression level?

I had everthing set at medium. The aliens were killing off my formers but I was able to keep replacing them. I had three formers running simultaneously trying to keep down the pollution and I was unable to keep up with it. While the three formers were working at eliminating pollution in the hex they were in another pollution hex would appear. I would send the first available former to clean it. As they could only move one hex at a time I didn't always get the formers to the pollution hex right away. That was why I was trying to get a fourth former out so I could build some roads and move faster. Just before I quit, I did finally get the Automated Recycling research done.

[SephiRok]

That sounds weird. By the way, cleaning the same tile with multiple formers doesn't make it faster atm.

Was it a lot better for you in the previous version? It can kinda snowball at the moment, I guess, because a polluted tile gives quite a bit of pollution.

[azpops]

That sounds weird. By the way, cleaning the same tile with multiple formers doesn't make it faster atm.

Was it a lot better for you in the previous version? It can kinda snowball at the moment, I guess, because a polluted tile gives quite a bit of pollution.

I tried more than one former and saw it didn't help so I stopped, used just one former per hex. The pollution in the previous version was not welcome, but I didn't find it nearly as impossible to keep up with it as in the new version. And yes, having multiple polluted tiles at a time does tend to reduce your food and mineral production quite significantly.

[IainMcNeil]

Could we deal with pollution in a different way?

Look at the way that MOO2 dealt with it. It basically reduced the efficiency of your city but did not require micro management to fix.

I'd suggest we do something similar and save the polluted tiles effect for extreme situations and make it much less common.

You also need to add a way to automate pollution clean up. E.g. I want to be able to tell formers to clean pollution but not do anything else.

[SephiRok]

That is actually already pretty much how it is. Pollution affects morale which in turn reduces your efficiency. Tiles become polluted when you let it go out of hand for too long.

I don't think azpops' problems were directly tied to how pollution is supposed to work. There was actually a huge bug that as soon as a pollution tile was in your city, your research, production and credits went to 0. We even buffed pollution buildings heavily; you should be able to stay at 0 pollution or very close to it if you hate pollution so much, by teching to the pollution buildings and having a few forests.

I think we could increase the accumulated amount of pollution needed to pollute to a constant 100 (at the moment it goes from 100 to 50 over the course of the game), as really you should be polluting faster later anyway.

If it continues to be disliked so much we could also make it cut tile gain to 50 % instead of 0 %, but I personally like it as it is.

[whaleberg]

Look at the way that MOO2 dealt with it. It basically reduced the efficiency of your city but did not require micro management to fix.

I'd suggest we do something similar and save the polluted tiles effect for extreme situations and make it much less common.

This would be better, I like that pollution causes moral problems. That makes sense to me. I don't like that it suddenly turns off your mineral producing tiles and requires re-routing formers. If it was say, nuclear fallout from a bomb that stopped work being done on the tile, that would make sense, or even if it only affected food yields. I really don't understand how it stops me from mining though.

[SephiRok]

Another possibility instead of cutting tile output to 0, would be to increase the pollution of the tile.

[whaleberg]

Why not increase the moral penalty instead? It would have a negative effect, but not lead to spiraling out of control pollution.

[whaleberg]

Or maybe a growth penalty to the city? Or reduce the food output to 0 but not the mineral output. Something pollution related? I just don't understand intuitively why pollution leads to an inability to mine or perform industrial activities. I actually think maybe a growth penalty would be best, because it doesn't have consequences at the moment, but would be a serious detriment over the long run if it gets out of hand.

[SephiRok]

I think it makes sense that pollution spreads. It's like a fire or a contagious disease, if you don't get it under control you'll be in trouble!

Only increasing the morale penalty would be weird -- why does a mine pollute, but huge green smoke coming out of the ground just make your guys a bit sad? Could as well drop pollution altogether then and just make each territory feature give some morale instead of pollution. Which I'm guessing is what you would like.

Just imagine that the ground, and the minerals in it, become tainted and weak, unsuitable for production.

[azpops]

My biggest complaint with the current pollution is that it begins so early into the game and is affected by absolutely everything you do. Even just building a road in a hex increases pollution. Basically in my latest game I found that if I plant everything with forest (which you can't build a road through????), no farms, no mines, no roads, it reduces the rate of pollution until you can research the first pollution fix "Automated Recycling". Why does pollution need to start so early into the settling of your faction? If you must have pollution, it seems it should be a result of large cities and large industrial complexes. I don't see how building a road or more particularly a farm can cause so much pollution. I'm already having to spend what I consider an inordinate amount of time micro-managing my cities to keep food and mineral production going above zero early in the game and on top of that I have to worry about pollution, too. Again, if you really have to have pollution, have it start later in the game when there is more civilization on the map to create it and give me time to enjoy the game before having to deal with it.