ModCast #16: "Netherland Dreams"

[DanQ]

If you love Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri or the Netherlands, then this episode is for you! Episode 16, "Netherland Dreams" (44m30s), features core panelists Tony "GarretSidzaka" Kiehl, Wouter "Locutus" Snijders and Kenneth "Impaler[WrG]" Ferland with first-time guest host Peter "Maniac" Steenbeke.

ModCast is a bi-weekly ~45-minute audio production of Apolyton Civilization Site and is an ongoing effort to give the Civ community an interactive voice on Civilization modding; its sibling show PolyCast focuses on Civ strategy. To date, ACS is the only community on the web to produce its own Civilization podcasts.

Summary of Topics:

- 03m20s | Artist Sketchpad
  We looked at Zenobia and Ronald Regan leaders by ekmek.
- 09m05s | Code Corner
  We looked at Jungle mod by kuneru, and Dale's Combat mod by Dale.
- 19m58s | Modder's Spotlight
  We with Maniac about the Planetfall Mod and about a whole lot more!

[GarretSidzaka]

thanks dan

[Maniac]

Best episode of ModCast ever!

Many other interesting things to say came in my mind five minutes after the recording, so I figured I'd make a post with some after-recording thoughts.


I kinda missed an important link in my explanation about the Genejack Factory. I went from "building lots of bases is too profitable/the only good strategy" to "there needs to be a way to turn food into production". The missing link is that the reason building new bases is the only good option, is because of high food surplus. Before the only way to make use of food surplus and prevent lots of unhappy citizens, was building colony pods. With a Genejack Factory you have an alternative. You can just let the drones accumulate and still gain production from them.


Regarding Jungle, even though part of it is cut down to make room for civilization in the real world, still a lot remains (at least judging from Vietnam movies etc, haven't been there myself ). I think combat would be more interesting and varied if more jungle with its defensive bonus remained uncut for the entire game. Then you don't have endless plains of grassland. Instead of inventing some new terrain improvements, you could just let the usual terrain improvements like farms be built on Jungle. Perhaps the feature could produce an extra food after some medieval tech to compensate for the initial health penalty. Those (rice-producing) regions are of the most populous in the world after all.


About the razing of Morgan Industries. Many Morganic players indeed lost interest in the democracy game after that event. However it's interesting to note that even after the decade of unchallenged air bombardment we Spartans did after the raid on Morgan Industries, you guys still had a much larger economy than anyone else in the game. The destruction of the Planetary Transit System made sure you weren't going to completely run away with the game, but you were still economically the most powerful. So I kinda see that raid as a perfect example of psychological warfare: we didn't truly defeat you in combat; you could still have easily won the game. No, we simply demoralized you. You lost the will to fight.


An interesting note about communism. You could say a big reason why I used to consider myself a communist for a while in my teens, was because I liked the Civ2 government system so much. Those were the Civ2 days, and I wasn't a very good civ player yet. As I became a better civ player and explored government systems like Republic and Democracy, and Free Market in SMAC, I also gradually became less communist.

[Dale]

Haven't listened to spotlight yet, but just want to clarify something for Kenneth.

Stack attack:
Very simple concept really, not as complex as you made out.
When two stacks meet in combat, you gain combined arms. This means your ranged troops with have a "first strike" at the enemy before melee troops engage. So your airforce will airstrike the enemy, your siege will bombard and your archers will reign firey arrows from heaven onto the enemy. Tanks will also engage via their blitz attack too. Then the grunts will clash.

So effectively, it now pays to have a good mix of units in your stacks.

[DanQ]

Originally posted by GarretSidzaka
thanks dan

Welcome.

Originally posted by Maniac
Best episode of ModCast ever!

[Murg]

It was definitly great to listen to Maniac's ideas about modding and desing for planetfall. But the hosts didnt have much to say about Planetfall, had they played it?

[Maniac]

Unfortunately I only managed to get Planetfall up to date to 3.17 like two days before the recording, so that didn't leave them much time to playtest it. Sorry... Then again, if it weren't for Locutus' invitation to appear on ModCast, I'd probably have given up on converting Planetfall at all.

I would certainly be interested though to reappear on Modcast, after the hosts have actually played the mod. I'd definitely consider it fun to respond to more concrete questions/criticisms/suggestions.