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IEDIT:
Also, it's really odd, but I just started a new game. For my oceanic homeworld, the game triggered no less than three "select your seasons" initialization events. Either my homeworld has twelve seasons, or something's gone a bit peculiar on my end.
Yeah. I am not sure what causes that. I fixed it though so that it doesn't matter (a single pick is only applied once.... if you select more than one, I guess that will be non-sense but it is currently possible). That JUST started happening and I didn't change the code except to fix it so I am not sure what is going on there.
So with Primitives unborked, I went from having around 10 primitive civs in the galaxy dying of suffocation on Gas Giants when the slider was set to 5 times the norm to I have 8 colonies and 7 of them were aquireed via "peacekeeping on primitive worlds" on times 5.
BTW, I tend to play with the primitive slider at max.
EDIT: Oh, make that 10 peacekeeping operations. There is a lot of xenos needing Human guidance.
LOL. So you are saying that there are too many now correct? I have observed that as well in the game I just started. I have a constant in my utility that represents the fraction of "habitable" scripts that get made into primitives scripts. I have been turning the fraction up because of the lack of primitives in the galaxy. Right now it is:
Code:
internal const double PRIMITIVE_RATIO = 0.15;
Now that they work properly, I guess I need to turn it back down. What fraction of the current amount do you feel would be good on a maximum setting? Maybe a fifth? A tenth?
EDIT: In my current game I have discovered 4 primitives worlds, one of which is in an "early" space age. Personally I think there should be at least 2-4 primitives worlds for every regular empire found in the game; based on odds and how much time is spend in pre-space flight eras. Since i haven't encountered any empires yet (on random placement), I am guessing I need to cut down the number by 1/3 or 1/4. Possibly 1/5.
Personally I am fine with a larger amount of primitives as long as they do not choke out space capable races. The biggest issue is the large amount of habitable worlds to the point of it being easy to get a large amount of worlds before making contact. I am aware of the ai issue with terraforming, but worlds habitable right out of the box seem way to common as it is now.
I played a game the other day, and my experience with habitable planets was a mixed bag, largely because of how the AI responds to habitable planets.
I scouted my immediate neighborhood, and there were was only one habitable planets that my species could survive on. The rest were either the wrong planet type or colossal. Then I found a couple near my neighbor. I was able to snatch them before my neighbor even found them, boxing him in and then conquering him twenty years later.
What most players do when they start a new game is detach a corvette, have it scout for systems with habitable planets, and then send science ships to survey the habitable planets. The AI doesn't play this way, though. When you combine the increased amount of time it takes to survey a system (because there are more celestial bodies to survey) with there being fewer habitable planets at start, it's almost guaranteed that a savvy player is going to find the habitable planets first.
I'm not sure if anything can be done about this though, but I figured it'd be worth mentioning. This is slightly a vanilla problem too, the fact that the player scouts with corvettes but the AI doesn't, but like I said, it's more apparent when surveys take longer and there are fewer habitable worlds at start.
@ZomgK3tchup
Yeah... I find it really annoying that we can't do more with the AI. Paradox really needs to get on the ball with the AI, both in native behavior and in giving us options. If they are going to make the game this moddable, we need to be able to change the AI behavior to match the changes we make. That was what was so nice about the Civilization series. They allowed us to mod the AI by releasing the DLL that controlled it. Simply allowing us to prioritize what stars the AI pays attention to would help make the AI more savvy in this particular mod. They need to hire an AI programmer who has lots of strategy game experience to both program the AI and to oversee options to add for people who mod the game. Honestly, I could do a better job than they do. Until then, I am going to have to walk a fine line between making it easier for the AI and making the game playable/enjoyable and realistic all at the same time.
Regarding corvettes... this is my personal approach (if you are interested):
Personally I don't use corvettes, though that is a good idea. I simply jump from system to system without surveying (prioritizing stars by type). In the beginning I take one or two science vessels to look for mineral rich systems (scanning entire systems that are likely high in resource content...A, B, O, neutron stars, pulsars, and white dwarfs) and between one and three vessels to look for habitable planets (which is easier now with sector managers rather than planet managers on your core worlds). With them I keep hopping from system to system until I find a habitable world that is close to my habitable preference. Then I scan the system. That is easy to do with wormhole travel which is my personal preference. (Without wormholes I would probably use corvettes as well).
@von Sachsen
I disagree with your most recent post to some extent while I agree with your first one. Maybe that is just because I am just too picky when picking my "first" colony (I like a habitability of at least 70% for my first colony). In the last several games I started (and had to stop because of the issues I needed to fix), I have found varying numbers of worlds of a similar type to mine; but due to the new, large set of modifiers, habitability generally fluctuates downward. In my current game I haven't found a single alpine/boreal world with a population over 14 and only one of those. I have examined 4-5 separate clusters (expanding a wormhole width in each direction, more in one direction toward the center of the galaxy). In all those stars, I haven't found a single world with a habitability above 60%. While this isn't entirely typical of all my recently started games, in general, I am finding it much more difficult to find a good "first colony" candidate. That is why I am reluctant to lower it too much at the current time. However, if it gets in the way of people finishing the game (as you suggested in your first post), I may have to.
In general, I would like to lower the number of habitable worlds for the sake of realism. I would also like to stick to not having to use the "neigbor" mechanism for the same reason. However, I am willing to compromise some reality for the same of good game play. (Though I find in most cases, realism enhances game play). If necessary I will re-implement the neighbor mechanism and lower habitability counts. ZomgK3tchup brings up a good point though. Lowering habitability counts may hinder the AI until Paradox finds someone who can actually program an AI. Keep discussing this though. Everyone's feedback regarding this issue is important to me.
Thanks. This issue is partly the result of the limited size issue that I address in the first post of this thread. I cannot space brown giants appropriately without getting too far out of the habitable zone for red stars. With more space, this issue will disappear (provided they actually give it to us). I may decide adjust things anyway though since most red stars with brown giants only have 1-2 planets anyway (with the rest being moons) anyway.
I have an idea about the time consuming survey issue mentioned by @ZomgK3tchup in this post. I can modify system survey speed. A (possibly) even better option: I can make a modifier that increases system survey speed and only give it to AI players. Or I can post a popup at the beginning asking the player how they would like the modifier applied.
It seems like the main issue is that the AI doesn't prioritize their initial surveying in a sensible way. An early survey boost would probably help them, but I'm not sure that they need one later in the game, so maybe they only should have it the beginning?
It seems like the main issue is that the AI doesn't prioritize their initial surveying in a sensible way. An early survey boost would probably help them, but I'm not sure that they need one later in the game, so maybe they only should have it the beginning?
Yeah. I was thinking the same thing. I can run a decade script to remove the the boost somewhere between 40-100 years. Earlier if people think it is appropriate. Keep the feedback coming. I want to know what other people would prefer.
So....Pet Rocks might have had been given a bit too many 0's.
Because seriously, 50%? You conquer any planet, and never fucking care again about unrest. 5% happiness makes more sense. And you might want to make it Citizen Pop Happiness, because my slaves?
Why would I let them have pets? Especially since they are the ones mining the food for the Nobility's pet rocks.
Granted, in their current form of Mind Control Rocks, I have plenty of reason. I mean, 50% happiness boost means the slaves are perfectly happy with my rule, so the poor things are being collected at a rate of absurd in-universe.
Hello all,
I am changing habitability values slightly so that they are a bit more varied (for certain planets), balanced, and a 5 count increase to the sum of all habitabilities (which is how I determine their balance... this sum used to be 510. It is now 515).
I am reposting my edit because it only applied to extreme (corner) planets.
FYI, the way I do habitability penalties, humidity differences has a significantly larger penalty than temperature differences. For corner planets (planets that occupy extreme corners of the habitability grid), the penatly can have 2-4x the impact as temperature. So planets with only a temperature difference will have a maximum of -10% penalty while the opposite humidity can have as high as a -40% difference.
For mid-range planets the penalties for both humidity and temperature are a bit more severe because each side is only one level of change away. Still, the penalties for humidity are significantly higher.
I'm not sure what to do about how the AI surveys. It would have to be a huge increase to survey speed to have any effect. It would have to be something to the effect of the AI scanning whole systems faster than you can find a habitable world and scan it.
You could disable corvettes at start, at least, and then, if the player wants to use his science ships to survey the systems in his borders or send them out, that'd be a strategic choice he'd make on his own. There's value in keeping your science ships at home, particularly so that you can start snowballing mineral production ASAP or on the unlikely chance that you find a 4-6 research planet.
I't take it a step further and maybe have Assist Research available at start to open the possibility of using your science ship for something that doesn't involve scouting.
Yet another possible solution is to go back to the early days of the game when colonization was locked behind a tech, but that would slow the early-game down by a few years. I'm not sure how much I like this one though since the whole reason they got rid of it was because it was the very obvious first choice for research.
AFAIK, the devs consider early-game scouting to be an exploit, so it's likely they're working on a solution anyway.
On a semi-related note, increased system sizes lead me to wanting to build more science ships, which in turn, increases the number of ships I have to control. It would be nice to have auto-survey available at start, or at least, make it available sooner.
Ok. Well then in addition to your suggestions, here are few additional ideas. Perhaps a combination of a few of these would work:
Speed up AI surveys significantly
Slow down human player survey's significantly
Make it so that human players have to build their first ships (all of them)
Hide surveys/science ships behind a tech
Hide drives behind a tech so that the drive must be researched before ships are built.
I know the last two make the first tech choice(s) pretty obvious as well but... honestly I find that irrelevant. That doesn't mean it detracts from the game. The last one is a bit like having a "early space age start" . Honestly I like that idea but it really isn't the point of this mod and there is another mod out there that does this.
@von Sachsen (and everyone)
I am taking steps so that reducing habitable worlds is feasible both play wise and useful planet wise. Last night I rebalanced gravity modifiers (they were skewed incorrectly toward high gravity modifiers in that too small of planets were getting penalized which means that larger planets were also penalized too much. This should help with overall habitability some. I also added a small habitability increase to all of the world-type life modifiers as well as the rich soil modifier. I think this will be a good balance. A friend of mine also made the suggestion that it may help to increase sector planet maxes to help with the additional planets. I think a max of 8-10 planets would be good; though I am open to other opinions.
After that... it is only the issue of the AI. Still waiting for feedback on that. Be aware though that I only want to decrease habitability by about 28% to keep with my original goal of increasing it about 25 or so percent.
How significant would speeding up AI surveying be? It'd have to be able to make up for the fact that you can survey individual planets, i.e., see a system with a potentially habitable planet, survey that planet, and then move onto the next.
This is tricky because I don't think there's a simple solution to this. An early space start does sound fun, but like you said, it's probably outside of the scope of the mod.
About planet cap, I think bringing it back to 5 is more reasonable since there are a lot of ways to increase the cap in-game. There's a tradition tree that gives you +2 for completing it, an ascension perk that gives you +5, two non-repeatable technologies that give you +1, a civic that gives you +2, and an ethos that gives you either +2 or +4, depending on whether you take the fanatic variant.
I'd go with 5 or 6 as the starting cap. I've played vanilla games where I've maximized the amount of core planets I could have, and once I hit the double-digits, it became a little unwieldy.
I should be issuing a patch update this weekend. Unless anyone has big objections these are the things that will be included:
NEW:
There is now an event that pops up at the beginning of the game that allows you to apply a handicap on yourself and a boost to the AI to compensate for the human ability to easily scout for habitable worlds. While it is not perfect, it is still effective with some empires. The picture at the bottom is a case in point: Look at the size of the indigo colored empire (The Jas' Gavaz Slayers. I am the Rusadi Union).
Added a new planetary project: Floral Augmentation that gets rid of the Squat Plant Life modifier.
FIXES:
Colossal worlds and dwarf giants should no longer appear as moons
Removed brutal cold and heat modifiers that were part of the import from Strange New Worlds mod. They are now redundant (have been replaced by ice age and global warming).
Destructive storms had wrong icon and frame
Made it so that planets should not mix strong magnetic field with weak gravity and weak magnetic field with strong gravity
Corrected distribution and occurence of high gravity modifiers so that they aren't quite so common and so that they are only on worlds with appropriate sizes
Removed the possibility of having extreme tides on your home planet (this was occurring on moon home-worlds only)
Added missing tile blocker images for the new tile blockers.
Fixed ultra high gravity modifier so that buildings cost more instead of less
Fixed the squat planet life modifier
Fixed the adaptive flora resource
Added missing text for colossal world habitability
CHANGES:
Significant changes in habitability. The paradigm I was using to calculate habitability has been changed somewhat. Habitability for starting world types should now be more balanced.
added +0.05 habitability to rich soil and environmenent based modifiers
changed odds of no seasons to be a bit less frequent
changed odds of extreme seasons to be a bit more frequent
Replaced "Toxic Kelp" with "Advanced Karst Topography" because toxic kelp 1) does not interfere with bipedal, land based, intelligent creatures, and 2) does not really interfere with ocean life except when consumed by species that cannot metabolize it. I consider the replacement to be temporary since it is too similar to the sinkhole blocker (another form of advanced karst topography). Your feedback and ideas are certainly welcome.
Modified/Replaced the Toxic Kelp removal tech so that it fits replacing tile blocker
Made it so that habitility type modifiers increase chance of society research on tiles for planet
Made it so that pet rocks do not appear beneath glaciers and other tile blockers that would make it impossible for rocks to live.
NOTE: There is also a fairly large empire not shown as I backtracked to a save because of an oversight on my part. It is about 2/3 the size of the Jas' Gavas slayers.
2nd EDIT:
ALSO NOTE: The dialog/event gives you 5 options:
No handicap/AI Boost
Handicap + 20 year AI boost
Handicap + 40 year AI boost
Handicap + 60 year AI boost
Handicap + 80 year AI boost.
The above map resulted from a 40 year AI boost. I imagine that if they had had more time, they would have become significantly larger since they are *still* expanding.
FYI, I believe I will keep the primitive odds the way they are. There is now a good range. If you like LOTS of primitives, you can have them. If you only want a few, you can have that as well. From both my experience and the reports of some of you, I believe that the slider may be a bit more sensitive in this mod, so the effect may be more drastic. At 2x, I found 4-5 primitive worlds before I found a regular empire. At 1x I have only encountered 2 in the game so far. I am only guessing, but I believe that the original game's default setting is somewhere between the 1x-1.5x setting for this mod.
