[Discussion] 0.870 - Post-emptive Discussion - Abode of the Opaled Beta Testers

[ptarth]

Greetings, if you are a new tester, I would encourage you NOT to read this, to keep yourself pure and pristine. This is a thread where the previous generations of testers, those who have fallen before you, will lament about the past, present, and future.

And why Chris has to take a simple idea and then.... >D

Edit: An objection has been made to jaded. So after a vote, it was changed to Opaled.

[Cinth]

Jaded?

[ptarth]

Notes and Observations

• Holy Tomatoes.
• Wow.

Notes and Observations v2

• This is really, really different. I am much more active in doing things.
• Terrestrial World generation has too many trees. It has been noted on Mantis and Forum, but it really has too many trees.
• This slows things down somewhat, although once I dropped 10 or 15 engineers, the probably mostly went away.
• The lumbermill, factory, fishing really change things. I'm not sure if it works, but it is really different.
• Science is really slow. I have a wonder and a resource, and things are still slow.
• I am just picking the cheapest tech for the most part. Occasionally I prioritize something.
• The increased population count for buildings makes me grumble.
• I have no idea how to keep my districts separate or who belongs to what. I hope individual district stats are gone (i.e., crime per building per district).
  
• Building anywhere is as good as I had dreamed it would be.
• I played with the sound on for a bit, the sounds are a bit out of nowhere (completed tech, social level, buliding, etc).
• Terraforming & Forest problems have already been brought up in Mantis.
• I'm scrolling around much, much more than before.
• AI is completely ignoring me at turn 150.
• I just got a genetic disease that started with 1 person. I think I can handle this disease rate.
• You initially feel you have endless districts, until you suddenly run out. Then you don't get anymore. I want to be able to increase that buildable distance. I thought that teleporters did that.
• So many buildings. Even with experience, keeping them straight and where they are is rough.
• Some of the resources are blending into the forest.
• Getting a Market Item economy up and running is much slower.

Attached is my latest save if anyone wants to take a look. I'm going to try for 100k citizens using this save, but that's going to be a long slog at this rate.

[Cinth]

I just quit a 700 turn game 

City building is a lot more fun and engaging with free form building.

I call Temperate Lakes map, Temperate Forest.  The next update should help with build stuff in woodland areas.  That doesn't address what your concerns are though.

The slower pace isn't that bad right now (would be if the AI/monsters attacked sooner/at all).  Should be a bit better next update.

I played 1000 turns just after the update.  I wasn't optimized for research but it took a good long while to complete the tree (one tech left). 

Once the AI gets involved, there should be more immediacy in what you want from the tree.  Choices are there and with the slower pacing, choice is important (even if you choose to ignore it).

"The increased population count for buildings makes me grumble." Not sure what you mean with this.

Separate districts, spatially or purposefully?  I haven't had any problems with either.  Plenty of room to place them and build in.  600 buildings and growing with double digit crime.  Big cities are possible with planning.

Agreed with free form building.  Lots of space to be creative and lots of ways to mess up you placements

I play pretty much all games with no sound.  I love my quiet.  (I do love Pablo's work, I'll listen to the music when I'm in the mood to do so).

Don't think I've messed with terraforming yet.  I watch the atmosphere conditions change all the time.  It's a battle I haven't participated in yet.

I don't scroll, I zoom out and back in.  Or sit zoomed out watching for monsters.

AI/ Monsters are a dead horse.  It's a WIP and on the way.  It won't be forgotten about

I've gotten genetic diseases that won't go away (2 at one time where the numbers stabilized).  I got one that exploded across half my population (10 of 20k people) in 2 turns.  That was exciting. 

One of the tool tips shows how many districts you have out of max possible (Civic Centers I think).  Teleporters are supposed to let you increase the distance you can place Civic Centers, though in practice, I can place them pretty far from the main city with out them.

We need documentation for building still.  Lots of it. 

Your last 2 I haven't even bothers messing with purposefully.


Me?  Population stats need a descriptive window explaining what the hell is going on a lot better.  The upper left info bars confuse me to no end still.  It needs to cover everything, housing, meals, food, water, jobs, entertainment, unemployment, crime, wounded, disease, births, and deaths.  Everything!  So tired of guess at what xyz means and likely overbuilding to compensate.  That has got to be my biggest gripe about city management right now. 

To go along with population, the city could use a similar screen that shows all the econ stuff. 

Building descriptions!  I have no clue what half the buildings do or how to best utilize half of whats left. Because of that, I've not messed with gathered resources at all (tried, half-assed it and managed to get some basic bonuses up that went no where).

Overall, the city building part feels pretty good (and is fun). 

[Shrugging Khan]

I just won my first game. About 500 turns in, with about 30 million crowns in the bank, I found out you can buy a Kerbal Space Trip to Alpha Centauri from the Spire. Which I did. Instant win - I never even had to finish the buildings, starting construction was enough.

I was actually going for a cultural victory, but that was boring since the Thoraxians didn't take offense at all. Oh well. It's Mantis'd now: Borked!

[crazyroosterman]

I just won my first game. About 500 turns in, with about 30 million crowns in the bank, I found out you can buy a Kerbal Space Trip to Alpha Centauri from the Spire. Which I did. Instant win - I never even had to finish the buildings, starting construction was enough.

I was actually going for a cultural victory, but that was boring since the Thoraxians didn't take offense at all. Oh well. It's Mantis'd now: Borked!

yea the thoraxians victory has been borked since people started getting it after the great pollution nukes of the first few patches now any way my thoughts on the changes? pretty much what other people have been saying for the most part I'm enjoying it the way shopping malls work thematically actually makes séance instead of your people being like hey you know what I miss most from our planet? SHOPING! HUR DUR the 2 things I don't like though is 1 how silly the price for the embaserie has been made honestly what's the point of making a building that does so little cost that seriously?! 2 the fact that linguistic centres  I personally don't like it but I'm not if its nesacery a bad thing yet. ps as weird as it sounds spawning in forests doesn't bother me I always seems to have to occupy my attention while some of the really long build chug along

[Shrugging Khan]

Further observations:

Resource gifting is stupidly effective. I never even made an effort to grab resources, and I just gave away a handful of what I had to every race. Bam - instant love from everyone.

Planet rage seems a bit...I don't know. Is the planet an American Liberal? Because the planet seems to dislike genetic engineering, global warming, police violence, Nuclear Power, Globalised Banking and all these things that American Liberals generally dislike. I thought planets would be a bit more laissez-faire about Riot gear and debt.

[Cinth]

AI/ Monsters are a dead horse.  It's a WIP and on the way.  It won't be forgotten about

Quoted myself because relevant.  Diplomacy is getting worked on too.

Further observations:

Resource gifting is stupidly effective. I never even made an effort to grab resources, and I just gave away a handful of what I had to every race. Bam - instant love from everyone.

Planet rage seems a bit...I don't know. Is the planet an American Liberal? Because the planet seems to dislike genetic engineering, global warming, police violence, Nuclear Power, Globalised Banking and all these things that American Liberals generally dislike. I thought planets would be a bit more laissez-faire about Riot gear and debt.

LOL.     
I think the planet falls under AI, but the mechanics around it are certainly going to change.  Rage just isn't cutting it right now. 

[ptarth]

I just quit a 700 turn game 

Took a break at around 300 turns. 45k pop, nearly all the research tree done, due to a x4 multiplier due to resource/wonder.

City building is a lot more fun and engaging with free form building.

Yes. I like it more. I'd like it if I could extend the range. For my first districts I built them too close so I lost a lot of buildable space. That made me sad.

"The increased population count for buildings makes me grumble." Not sure what you mean with this.

Each turn I have to go and queue up to build the new bank I'm allotted or the new office. Or I forget and then place 20 Holo Sims.

Separate districts, spatially or purposefully?  I haven't had any problems with either.  Plenty of room to place them and build in.  600 buildings and growing with double digit crime.  Big cities are possible with planning.

For some reason my government social growth was slow. By the time I got my 3rd district I was snow balling to the point of it not mattering. I should probably look into what gives government points.

Agreed with free form building.  Lots of space to be creative and lots of ways to mess up you placements

I really, really, like the placement. I wish Chris would add the rest of my proposed adjacency bonuses, but he wants them to be more special. If you think you want more of them, go vote for the mantis entry: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=16826

I play pretty much all games with no sound.  I love my quiet.  (I do love Pablo's work, I'll listen to the music when I'm in the mood to do so).

I listened to it for a while today. It is nice.

Don't think I've messed with terraforming yet.  I watch the atmosphere conditions change all the time.  It's a battle I haven't participated in yet.

I don't think it is optimized, but usually if I'm compatible enough to not have impairments, I don't really bother much with terraforming.

I don't scroll, I zoom out and back in.  Or sit zoomed out watching for monsters.

I'm using laptop without mouse. Scrolling takes a lot more work. I have to find the zoom keys.

I've gotten genetic diseases that won't go away (2 at one time where the numbers stabilized).  I got one that exploded across half my population (10 of 20k people) in 2 turns.  That was exciting. 

Evuck disease catching was broken, each infection only infected 1 guy. He got better.

Me?  Population stats need a descriptive window explaining what the hell is going on a lot better.  The upper left info bars confuse me to no end still.  It needs to cover everything, housing, meals, food, water, jobs, entertainment, unemployment, crime, wounded, disease, births, and deaths.  Everything!  So tired of guess at what xyz means and likely overbuilding to compensate.  That has got to be my biggest gripe about city management right now. 

Yeah. There are a bunch of mantis entries from way back in the early beta about making the GUI tooltips better, same for The Last Federation. I think Chris hates tooltips. And Bunnies. He really hates Bunnies.

To go along with population, the city could use a similar screen that shows all the econ stuff. 

Yeah. I want that, although it is less of an issue. There is a mantis entry for that.

Building descriptions!  I have no clue what half the buildings do or how to best utilize half of whats left. Because of that, I've not messed with gathered resources at all (tried, half-assed it and managed to get some basic bonuses up that went no where).

I've found most of them to be insufficient to motivate me to use them. Some of them I have a hard time justifying. Extra population, extra meals, extra police, extra military, and extra crops all have limited used.

Overall, the city building part feels pretty good (and is fun).

It is much better. Although after my recent game ~800 buildings, I'm annoyed by how restrictive it is. Here is my hexagon district will with commerce buildings. Part of me really likes it, but part of me found it tedious. I haven't digested it enough to say what's bothering me.

[Cinth]

"The increased population count for buildings makes me grumble." Not sure what you mean with this.

Each turn I have to go and queue up to build the new bank I'm allotted or the new office. Or I forget and then place 20 Holo Sims.

Do you have enough employment?  I am much slower than you in building up the population because jobs are hard to come by in large numbers.  I'll start with 6 apartments and not grow that until I have most of them with jobs.  Then all the entertainment buildings are freed up to start adding new population.  Try slowing your Pop growth a bit

Separate districts, spatially or purposefully?  I haven't had any problems with either.  Plenty of room to place them and build in.  600 buildings and growing with double digit crime.  Big cities are possible with planning.

For some reason my government social growth was slow. By the time I got my 3rd district I was snow balling to the point of it not mattering. I should probably look into what gives government points.

Same here, but I'm growing my city a bit slower too.

Agreed with free form building.  Lots of space to be creative and lots of ways to mess up you placements

I really, really, like the placement. I wish Chris would add the rest of my proposed adjacency bonuses, but he wants them to be more special. If you think you want more of them, go vote for the mantis entry: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=16826

Sounds like Chris is interested in it so no need to vote it up.  Right now it isn't broken or high priority so it will probably be something done nearer to the polish phase.  Still a lot to be done.

Don't think I've messed with terraforming yet.  I watch the atmosphere conditions change all the time.  It's a battle I haven't participated in yet.

I don't think it is optimized, but usually if I'm compatible enough to not have impairments, I don't really bother much with terraforming.

Wonder if Chris would think it's a problem that people aren't terraforming?

Me?  Population stats need a descriptive window explaining what the hell is going on a lot better.  The upper left info bars confuse me to no end still.  It needs to cover everything, housing, meals, food, water, jobs, entertainment, unemployment, crime, wounded, disease, births, and deaths.  Everything!  So tired of guess at what xyz means and likely overbuilding to compensate.  That has got to be my biggest gripe about city management right now. 

Yeah. There are a bunch of mantis entries from way back in the early beta about making the GUI tooltips better, same for The Last Federation. I think Chris hates tooltips. And Bunnies. He really hates Bunnies.

Lol, no.  We will get documentation and toot tips.  It's a polish thing that usually comes with the latter stages of testing.

Building descriptions!  I have no clue what half the buildings do or how to best utilize half of whats left. Because of that, I've not messed with gathered resources at all (tried, half-assed it and managed to get some basic bonuses up that went no where).

I've found most of them to be insufficient to motivate me to use them. Some of them I have a hard time justifying. Extra population, extra meals, extra police, extra military, and extra crops all have limited used.

If you stuff population n basement housing you will need extra meals.  I'm probably over using police but meh... Martial law tends to work well in 4x games 

[ptarth]

Do you have enough employment?  I am much slower than you in building up the population because jobs are hard to come by in large numbers.  I'll start with 6 apartments and not grow that until I have most of them with jobs.  Then all the entertainment buildings are freed up to start adding new population.  Try slowing your Pop growth a bit

Slow down? Heh. I keep trying to make 100k population, but I stall out at 50k.
I've not have problems with unemployment in this version. It has messaged a few times, but nothing came of it.
I'll attach my latest save that I gave up to address this and the rest of your points.

Wonder if Chris would think it's a problem that people aren't terraforming?

Its the forest that's causing it in this version. I'm not worried about it being a problem yet.

If you stuff population n basement housing you will need extra meals.  I'm probably over using police but meh... Martial law tends to work well in 4x games 

Somewhat? I'd like it if underground housing gave adjacency bonuses. Spamming them is annoying. If you surround each restaurant with the appropriate dwellings, meal creation is typically not an issue at all. Although, in this last game I used virtually all condominiums, which are lower density dwellings.

[Cinth]

Gez. I have half your pop at 2x the turns.

Here have a look.  Just messing around last night but it is the pace I build at.

You need to have the infrastructure to support 100k people before you hit 100k...

[ptarth]

Gez. I have half your pop at 2x the turns.

Here have a look.  Just messing around last night but it is the pace I build at.

I really like seeing other player's games. It is really weird and cool to see the things people do differently.
Examples

• Terbium! It's just right there...
• Ancient Glacier Wind bonus is just so good.
• Playing with a backup dump or graveyard scares me.
• The centralized helipad system is odd.
• I don't like how the Molecular Refinery is working in this version it is out of place I think. And that power cost. Ouch.
• No market items generation? Plop down a single ring of luxury housing + a fine diner and you can place tons of them. That is where a ton of population employment will come from as well. Right now employment is Commerce (offices mainly), Market Items (all of them), Science (Labs & linguistics), and industry (factories). Pump them all.

You need to have the infrastructure to support 100k people before you hit 100k...

I do mostly. You see I have the food, meals, housing, etc. I just need jobs to come online, which means I need population. The Shrine balance is also off. I should bulldoze most of those shrines and replace it with more commercial buildings and then build another 50k underground housing. Or more condos.[/list]

[Cinth]

Gez. I have half your pop at 2x the turns.

Here have a look.  Just messing around last night but it is the pace I build at.

I really like seeing other player's games. It is really weird and cool to see the things people do differently.
Examples

• Terbium! It's just right there...
• Ancient Glacier Wind bonus is just so good.
• Playing with a backup dump or graveyard scares me.
• The centralized helipad system is odd.
• I don't like how the Molecular Refinery is working in this version it is out of place I think. And that power cost. Ouch.
• No market items generation? Plop down a single ring of luxury housing + a fine diner and you can place tons of them. That is where a ton of population employment will come from as well. Right now employment is Commerce (offices mainly), Market Items (all of them), Science (Labs & linguistics), and industry (factories). Pump them all.

Most of the resources I just can't be bothered to collect.  The ones that boost science, maybe.  The rest, meh, wheatever.
The AG bonus puts 6 wind turbines on par with nuclear and geothermal power.  Very nice.
Recycle everything! You place a lot of centers but it isn't hard to keep ahead of trash either.  Much more dangerous to run without a graveyard   Live hazardously lol.
The helipads were placed in response to a Thoraxian Predator that attacked me (shocking I know).  Those would have been bulldozed out when I needed that space.
Molecular Refinery, only using it for the boost to science. 
Market items... that stuff you supposedly trade to the AI?  Meh.  I just had exploded the population so there were available building in some categories that needed to be built.  Some stuff I haven't gotten to yet (Luxury houses and stuff).

I play it up slow.  No reason to be in a hurry (even if the AI was aggressive).  Still trying to find the balance in pop growth and jobs.  Todays game died gloriously when ended up with way to many job available and I dropped 6 birth centers to boost pop (built to much to soon and tried boosting pop to cover it, didn't work like I had hoped).

Big city crime is kinda interesting right now, but very volatile.  People seem very eager and willing to kill each other off (lol).  Thinking the the Trauma Center should convert some crime death like it does combat death.
[/list]

[crazyroosterman]

Gez. I have half your pop at 2x the turns.

Here have a look.  Just messing around last night but it is the pace I build at.

I really like seeing other player's games. It is really weird and cool to see the things people do differently.
Examples

• Terbium! It's just right there...
• Ancient Glacier Wind bonus is just so good.
• Playing with a backup dump or graveyard scares me.
• The centralized helipad system is odd.
• I don't like how the Molecular Refinery is working in this version it is out of place I think. And that power cost. Ouch.
• No market items generation? Plop down a single ring of luxury housing + a fine diner and you can place tons of them. That is where a ton of population employment will come from as well. Right now employment is Commerce (offices mainly), Market Items (all of them), Science (Labs & linguistics), and industry (factories). Pump them all.

You need to have the infrastructure to support 100k people before you hit 100k...

I do mostly. You see I have the food, meals, housing, etc. I just need jobs to come online, which means I need population. The Shrine balance is also off. I should bulldoze most of those shrines and replace it with more commercial buildings and then build another 50k underground housing. Or more condos.[/list]

you say you like seeing other peoples games? in that case have a save file from my current test game. ps I'm finding that I like to have my main district to have a bit of everything really industrial commerce food water so on and so on and I usually make new districts when I see new resources that I want regardless of weather there of any use to just so other races cant have them