Please Help a rookie (Rule modification)

[Seti]

Hello,

although i own AC/Crossfire for a long Time now, i did never played it as much as i would have liked to.
I loved playing all CIV/MOO-like Games and when AC came out it seemed to be the perfect Game for me, adding all the features i missed in CIV (customizable units, great new technologies and weapons, terraforming are only top of a long list...).

But despite all its greatness, there is one aspect of the game i just cant stand: this ecology-counter that starts destroying all my accomplishments and terrain-improvements with wildly growing xenofungus at a certain time.

Of course one can now argue for a lifetime about the pros and cons of this "feature" of the game. I am also aware that all this "the planet is a lifeform itself"-stuff is a core-element of the game.
But for me it is just annoying and i´d like to know what possibilities are there to do some tweaks on this issue.

Looking through the config-files i found the description of the formula which calculates the values that trigger the fungus-epidemic. But i did not find any values to change that may help make the system a litte bit more "forgiving".

Therefore my question is, does anybody know if this is possible at all (and how). Or where could i find more information about editing and customizing the rules of the game (especially the planetary and environmental aspects) ?

Thanks very much in advance for your help. It would be great if i could play AC again, since CIV3 does not seem to reach the same game-depth we were used to from SMAC.

Merry Christmas everybody,
Seti

[Hydro]

Seti,

I don’t think you need to modify the game since there is a few easy fixes to reduce eco damage that are built into the game:

* Terraforming – builds forests (which decrease eco damage), and limit the number of mines and especially boreholes, which really spike terraforming-related ecodamage.
* Build eco-friendly base improvements. Tree farms, hybrid forests, preserves all ease eco pollution effects.
* Change your SE to have a positive Planet rating, which reduces eco damage

There are also SPs that reduce eco damage, and mining satellites are pollution free (but these are really late game). By the mid-game (post hybrid forests and missile) it is highly likely that a decently developed base can produce minerals in the 20s without any eco damage. By late game I’ve had bases producing over 90 minerals with no eco damage whatsoever.

Lastly, you can inoculate yourself with each fungal bloom, which (reportedly) increases your ability to pollute. This seems counter intuitive, but it apparently works. I suspect it is a bug, but it is unlikely to be fixed now.

Fungal blooms are the equivalent of pollution in Civ, and they are well integrated into the game since Planet is essentially a semi-passive 8th faction. It takes only a few tools to manage eco damage, many of which are listed above.

Hydro

[Fitz]

Hydro, the aibility of Fungal blooms to innoculate against eco-damage is likely not a bug, but the ability of facilities to do it is probably at least partially a bug.

Seti, if you want to be completely eco-damage free, you need to understand a few basics:

1) You can have 16 minerals in a base and not have any eco-damage. Terraforming may reduce this number slightly. Atrocities (ie planet busters and nerver-gas) will reduce it by 5 for each planet-buster and an unspecified amount for repeat nerve-gassing.

2) Each fungal bloom (pop) that produces fungus near a base increases the amount that every base may use by 1 mineral. The first two fungal blooms produce 0 mindworms (or so I am told).

3) Undocumented feature/bug: After the first fungal bloom, and the associated interlude (<pop>), each and every tree-farm, hybrid forest, centauri preserve, and temple of planet increase the minerals in all bases by 1, regardless of where the facility is built.

Example: You have 15 core bases (+ unspecified border bases). After the first <pop> you build 15 tree farms and 15 hybrid forests (1 of each in each base). Now all bases may have up to 47 minerals (16 + 1pop + 15TF + 15HF) in them. Assuming they are all population 16, with a few crawlers, lets say they actually have about 30 in each, with 0 eco-damage.

Later on, you drop 2 nukes on opponents, and various opponents drop 8 more on each other and you. That's 10 nukes (effectively -50 clean minerals), which reduces that 47 to -3 (ie LOTS of eco-damage everywhere). To counteract this, each base builds a centauri preserve and temple of planet. Now you can have (-3 + 30) or 27 eco-damage free minerals. Since you actually have 30, you have minor eco-damage.

Lesson to be learned: DON'T DROP PLANETBUSTERS. Or use nerve-gas.

Now, if you had more bases to build the facilities in, or were willing to exploit the system a little, you might have gotten away with it.

[RedFred]

Originally posted by Fitz
Hydro, the aibility of Fungal blooms to innoculate against eco-damage is likely not a bug, but the ability of facilities to do it is probably at least partially a bug.

Fitz, can you elaborate on this?

The reason I am curious, is that the manual identifies the base facilities' ability to reduce eco-damage. It gives no indication that fungal blooms will innoculate against eco-damage.

Additional points on eco-damage: nerve-gassing aliens doesn't bother Planet. Something strange happens with fungal or tectonic missiles. I believe that eco-damage from these missiles is a bug.

[Hydro]

Fitz,

My understanding is the TF and HF halve and then eliminate (respectively) terraforming-related eco damage. So, you can build (but not necessarily use) those mines and boreholes within a base’s radius without causing eco damage due to terraforming. This has worked for me in practice, and it is well documented and can be pulled up in datalinks.

Production (mineral) eco damage is a separate issue. I would argue that increasing non-eco damage mineral production due to fungal blooms is a bug because it is counter-intuitive. Are you saying that Planet is rewarding you for hurting it? And then if you hurt it again it rewards you more? And with each eruption it fights back less? This is counter to how the game seems to be designed, where Planet actively defends itself by blooms and its mindworm vectors. If anything it should become more sensitive and allow less mineral production before you cross the eco damage threshhold. My guess is that Firaxis missed a minus sign somewhere in their code.

I’ve heard of but never tested the undocumented feature you mention. It does make some sense, though, that facilities decrease eco pollution and at least it isn’t counter-intuitive (to me, at least). I might argue with the additive effect, however. I’ll have to pull up datalinks again to review the eco damage formula and then try it out, testing this theory.

Hydro

[Seti]

Hey, thank you all very much for your comments and tips!

So it seems that there is no other way than dealing with the eco-rules as play the game "by the book" and always have the calculator ready to count these eco-values....

But is there NO WAY of changing the values that are taken in the formula for this eco-balance-stuff ?
I mean it seems that in this game nearly every other aspect seems to be open for the user to customize, so why not this part ?

Well, I guess it´s exactly like "the rusty gamer" pointed out in his wonderful article about "The ultimate Game" (columns november).
The "perfect game" just does not exist - at least not for me...

Anyway, thank you all for your help; and if you should by coincidence run over some settings in the game files that may help me out, please let me know!


Greetings,

Seti

[T-hawk]

Originally posted by Fitz
Hydro, the aibility of Fungal blooms to innoculate against eco-damage is likely not a bug, but the ability of facilities to do it is probably at least partially a bug.

IMO, the bug part is where Tree Farms, Hybrid Forests, Centauri Preserves, and Temples of Planet all reduce the eco-damage for EVERY BASE in the faction. That seems questionably logical, although hardly incomprehensible.

Atrocities (ie planet busters and nerver-gas) will reduce it by 5 for each planet-buster and an unspecified amount for repeat nerve-gassing.

I don't think anyone's quantified the exact eco-damage effects of nerve gas or nerve stapling, although I'd like to see it. Neither causes eco-damage if the UN Charter has been repealed.