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Support by itself is useless, which makes comfort even more useless (for 1 pop cities, it's just +1 support/turn). With the exception of 1st (accumulate points) scenario, support only delays the inevitable, but since you can win most max mastery scenarios by ~T60 or even faster if you're lucky, you basically don't need it at all.
On lower difficulty levels, it doesn't matter. Play any way you like, you'll win eventually.
If you're aiming at max mastery runs though, city spam, coupled with Urban Planning, expansionist start and rover/satellite spam, if possible, is basically the only easy way. The support bonus you get this way is enormous, and having high expansion speed allows you to stay way ahead of the expectations rising curve (also giving you tons of resources etc.)
Also, there's even usually no point in using the starting 30 food for 2nd pop, I prefer to have 2nd city almost immediately (as soon as turn 5 e.g.) - you'll usually get those droids soon enough, as they are "common" rarity. You shouldn't have excess food - if you have it, it usually means you're expanding too slow.
Comfort is totally useless, big (as in "population big", not "territory big") cities are usually useless, support is a waste stat. Focus on expansion, resources, terraforming, lifeforms and scenario goals instead. The starting city size (4 buildings, 5 - 1 for HQ) is good enough to build a 3+1 hub by itself. If you do your expansion, 'forming and spreading fast enough, you don't need any additional support at all for most of the time. 1 or 2 high support buildings in the beginning (like e.g. a starter hospital with "sciene" starting bonus etc.) should be the only thing you need, maybe coupled with some permanent +support bonuses from heroes or techs (Reverse Engineering comes to mind here, it's basically an instawin if you use it correctly).
The additional bonus of not having pop buildings (other than HQs) is that you never get them damaged by sandstorms/quakes etc., which can basically make you lose a run if you're unlucky (even a single HQ to repair is problematic... now try to repair 2 or 3 skyscrapers XD)
And yeah, that "tourist" hero with bonus to 10 pop cities is virtually the worst hero in the entire game.
tl;dr 2: 1 human, and 2-4 robots, preferably with urban planning and bus/train systems. Only pump excess food in pop if you really need the slots immediately or have nothing better to do with the food at all (i.e. no good city slots around and no way to speed up the scouting).
If I try to go tall, I struggle or even lose, if I go wide, it can go into positive comfort even on utopian++++. Best strategy seems to be getting something that gives you bonus comfort for the goal you are pursuing anyways (like space projects or city foundations), though of course there is a bit of luck involved with that.
Another problem is that 1 human population + 1 robot hubs means you can already fill most of your city building slots. So how about this: Robots only count as 1/2 human population for the purpose of expanding city building slots, and the scaling is
No, that was a suggestion to balance new city vs habitat building better. I agree that currently it's mostly best to just go main base +1-2 robot buildings.
One possible exception: In my last game, I got megastructure tech and a lava tube surrounded by 3 watchtowers. So then in the very late game when resource production was already sufficient, I kept then and again dropping high rises for 50 food, and absolutely swam in happiness even on utopian++++.
Though I only finished turn 67 :-/ I still haven't quite figured out the tech scenario, the techs seem to come too fast in the early game, then too slow in the late. And it seems most dependent on getting the right building draws at the right time.
But more importantly: What do you think about my suggested robot change? City building slots seem abundant currently, I never saw the point in those +3 max building...buildings like cafe, and if they're not, the best way to get them is to found a new city. I thought with this, founding new city vs expanding existing one would be balanced a bit better, and robot spam would not be quite as attractive. Current state is 5-> 9 -> 12 -> 14 -> 15, so you're pretty much done with main base + 1 robot building (12 - 14).
TBH, I did it on max mastery on my first try on T62 completely ignoring Deimos. If you prioritise science hubs on Mars itself, you can easily match Deimos's science production with, like, a single 4+1 hub and one local anomaly? Hub building's cost (~20 local silicates) is arguably easier to match than exporting those ~40 resources (because you could trade 40 junk resources in the meantime or complete other space projects for 40 resources, and that can be actually a lot, especially with 2x tritium and/or ports near tritium/titanium/silicate mines).
I mean, in the endgame both moons can be useful-ish, but they are nowhere being a gamebreaking OP gift from heavens IMO, even for that particular scenario.
Hint from me: if in any trouble, roll the starting conditions until you get the Scientific start, it makes this scenario a complete breeze. Then just spam those Reseach/Development (and sometimes also Applied Science) Centers plus Bacteria Spreaders, complete the techs ASAP, select science-oriented leaders (esp. the one giving the additional +1 tech and the one giving +science production bonus) and you basically won. (those Centers snowball really easily, and spreaders with cyanophyta and techs will keep your support high enough)
Honestly? It would make the game more complicated, with little change to the problem at hand. It's not the droids that are too strong, it's the pop building/price ratio that is too weak.
You're completely right here.
Well, making city slots grow slower would only make city rush a more attractive strategy. Like I said, it wouldn't solve the problem here at all. It's the in-city growth that's lacking vs rapid expansion. Nerfing it even more is IMO a bad idea.
Well if you needed a habitat building or several droid hubs I think you would reconsider if you would not rather place that habitat building in a better spot. It's not exactly about making city slot growth slower but making it less front-loaded. You could also just make it grow in steps of 3 with human population, then expanding would give you zero advantage for building slots and growth would be much more attractive, I just chose a middle ground because I assume the developers put some thought behind front-loading it.
Btw focusing just on resources and teraforming can also not work out. I just had a game which had a very solid start, but I did not draw the heat bacteria, or more correctly drew them only on second try, and then could twice only get plants that needed heat 1, so despite having 2 bacteria spreaders and a planter I could not get plant growth going and "died" somewhere around turn 30 despite a very solid resouce income because I simply could not get those crucial teraforming support packages. Could not even find sand stones, very annoying :-)
Well, you're bound to see it anyway in 2-4 games (because the pool of those random choices is very limited), so pick your poison :) You'd still need to win some other scenario to get a re-roll, though. IMO, since the lack of game balance is not your fault, don't punish yourself for it, work around it :D
Yeah, I 100% agree on that. Currently, with how Expansionist (or however the rover+bus bonus is called :) start is OP, it's not fun for me to pick other starts. Basically, if played right, that start is about -5 to -10 turns needed for win in most scenarios. There are obviously other OP combos, like starting the bonus with rushing a spreader in green/blue scenarios, possibly also with the spreader cost reduction from leader etc.
tl;dr neither the starting bonuses or leaders are balanced at all. FWIW, Terraforming Mars had a similar problem, with Ecoline (for 3-4 players) & Helion (for 2 players) being arguably OP, but here it's made even worse, with heavy RNG.
TBH, this game looks like one that hasn't been balanced and/or beta-tested properly. I don't blame the devs directly (it's still a very good game with a good price made by a small indie team on a short notice), but it doesn't change the fact that current balance (or semblance of it) doesn't seem a deliberate effort, but simply a side-effect of a very, for the lack of better word, "spontaneous" development cycle.
Adding additional complexity/ifology won't help here. A simple tweaking of existing numeric values of stuff would IMO do quite well. If the game would be mod-friendly, I guess we would have such mod already (or even I would create it, for the sake of it :)
Currently, there's a lot (and by that I mean A REAL LOT) of useless fluff in this game (some of which was pointed in this thread already), with many mechanics either clearly OP or underpowered. It really shoehorns your play, especially at higher difficulty levels. It's still a good game, but right now, with its current UI/UX and balance problems, it's 7.5/10 instead of 9/10 or higher IMO.
RNGsus can always kill you if he so desires, but it's kinda common knowledge that the order of difficulty of terraforming is
water < atmosphere < O2 < "heat" (no, it's not "heat", it's temperature, the game is wrong on that... if it were "heat", you would just nuke the entire planet :)
As such, you accomodate in reverse order, if possible (with the exception of cyanophyta, obviously, since it's too versatile).
IMVHO, you failed the run because you didn't use the "0 support" trick in tandem with water terraform. After I understood how to do it, it made the games a lot easier for me, especially in those strange near-lose situations in mid- or endgame, when you're just 1 or 2 turns from completely reversing the situation on board. (i.e. almost have a spreader ready, almost have a 'form stage ready, almost have a city ready, almost have a space project ready, waiting for some simple common project for the 3rd turn while having 20+ proposals/turn already etc. :)
It also means you should usually prioritize water-dependent plants over temperature-dependent ones. Rushing 1 or 2 good support buildings early is also quite important to not lose around T30, IMO (basically, that's the only time they matter at all).
Your support never falls below 0, regardless of how much -support/turn and current support you have.
You don't lose the game due to 0 support if you have any forced +support action that triggers before your "actual" turn starts (e.g. terraforming).
As a result, as long as you schedule your terraforming to trigger on consecutive turns, you won't lose, even with -support/turn higher than your support.
If you add it up, it actually gives you a "hidden" permanent support bonus, e.g.
Turn X: you end the turn with 50 support & -150 support per turn
Turn X+1: terraforming L1 triggers (e.g. atmosphere) and gives you 100 support; you get some other /turn support bonuses, and are at 0+100 = 100 support at the end of turn, and -120 support per turn
Turn X+2: another terraforming L1 triggers (e.g. O2) and gives you 100 support; you get other /turn support bonuses and are at 0+100 = 100 support at the end of turn and -105 support per turn
Turn X+3: you destroy some water mines to get to water deposits, you release them and water terraforming L2 triggers, you spread some plant or animal, you end the turn with e.g. 0+200+40 support and -90 support/turn.
Turn X+4: you start with 150 support and -90 support per turn.
In total, you got 440 support in those turns. In the meanwhile, you had theoretical -465 total support loss (i.e. you would lose that much without this "trick"). That gives you -25 support in total. You started with 50 support. You ended with 150 support. Instead of -25 loss, you got +100 gain. That's not only avoiding losing for two turns, but also a nice +125 support bonus. That's basically another free turn or two at that point.
And yes, it's tricky to pull it off, but once you realize you can plan for it (esp. by making two of those terraforms the water ones, since you can easily schedule them as long as you leave spare energy), it's trivial.
It also means you shouldn't trigger any spreaders, explore milestone locations etc. in the turns before 'forming if you're about to hit 0 support anyway - it's better to get the support bonus after those "immortal" turns.
It's also extremely powerful in the endgame. Even with 1 support at the end of turn and literally -500 support/turn you can get that single "magic" turn by e.g. water L3. That's why I never do water L3 until late game even if I can - so that I have an additional "immortal" turn if needed. Same can be done with heat/atmosphere space projects, volcanoes and pole glaciers - instead of always triggering them immediately, plan ahead.
Not really. It's cyanophyta + animals, with tundra/kelp only as support. Bear with me.
You start with heavy cyanophyta spam. That allows you to rush animals (especially hares as "groundwork", and then water animals) without any dependence on actual plants or city 'forming buildings (though they do help, obviously). Only after that, you go with heat. It's counter-intuitive, but it works. Hares make everything trivial due to synergy bonuses and because they breed quickly like, well, rabbits XD (also, Gene Vault FTW, with all relevant techs/mods for spread speed etc. you can get insane on those bunnies)
From plants, only 2 of 11 (kelp + tundra) are heat-independent. From animals, 6/13. Half of them are good with just 1 level of O2. The average support payout for animals is higher than for plants. A single plant's O2+atmosphere production can be matched by single cyanophyta (and later it can be easily beaten by plankton) Also, you can reduce the O2 requirement by genetic mod. Like I said, IMVHO you made a mistake prioritizing plants over animals. All animals require at least 1 level of O2, but you can get that O2 quite quickly with cyanophyta spam.
tl;dr plants are nice, but overrated :D
You got unlucky, true, but prioritizing reaching the poles to be able to go to water level 2 if needed in an emergency is paramount. It's only 9 water "ticks" to get to L2 total. Since you're guaranteed to get some +2/+3 water resources at the poles (especially at the north one), it's not that hard by ~T30, consistently. The +20 water space project is nice here, too (you remembered to start importing tritium ASAP, right? :)
Also remember that you can always destroy your water mines to get that water back for terraforming as soon as you need it :D
And don't get me wrong - you probably also got really unlucky there, and maybe it was just impossible to win that game... but that doesn't mean you couldn't used some more optimal tactic also :)
Interesting. I considered something like this after noticing the very low spread times of hares. But: Only hares and herings only require one level of O2 and nothing else, and if you have some means of increasing heat it's easier to reach 1 heat 1 O2 than 2 O2 (as first level is onyl 30 steps needed). As you yourself said, water 1 is the easiest, so that seems to leave you with more plant options than animal options. And you get a non-leader-dependent choice of plant earlier, and most importantly, plants produce prestige and O2 while animals produce only prestige; so if you go heat bacteria and plants you get high levels of heat and oxygen, whereas oxygen bacteria + animals will not leave you with heat. One last thing I noticed recently: Negative levels of O2 will not negatively affect living comfort, but negative levels of temperature will, so raising temperature will always raise comfort in all your citites while raising O2 to first level will only do so in very few, namely those that start at 0 oxygen.
Still, I might try this if I happen to roll oxygen bacteria and/or Jäger next game.
it's a core game mechanic, and was like that since the very beginning. I belive it was also hinted at somewhere in the tutorial and is completely logical taking the setting of the game into account (i.e. would you overthrow a leader who just achieved a giant terraforming milestone this year? :), so I wouldn't call that an exploit. It's a definitely a trick though, since it takes some effort to pull off.
Not really. Clownfish and BoP can also manage with 1 O2. They do require heat also obviously, but you can locally increase the heat by planetside buildings etc.; my point was that if you have AT LEAST 1 O2, you might as well go for animals and ignore plants at all. Atmosphere is not needed for lifeforms, and the benefit from more than 1 level of O2 is ephemeral, unless you're playing the Green Path scenario, obviously (in Blue Path, YMMV, but you still can manage with L2 or even L1 if you use gene mods).
This is what makes the plants mostly useless in the long run. You'll reach Atmpsphere 3 anyway without emphasizing them, and you don't need more than 1 level of O2 usually. Cyanophyta+plankton later on works well enough for managing O2 anyway.
Like I said - O2 is an overkill in early game. You can usually save it for later. 1 O2 is enough.
Not really. The % probability is mostly the same, but, like I said, you'll snowball with bunnies. You can't do that with plants (they spread too slowly, 12 turns for the tundra vs 5 turns for the hares).
Recall this: it's 12 turns to spread most of the plants (some are 8 turns, but those have higher requirements and thus are tricky to first get, since early you can never know for sure if you're wasting a slot by picking them or not, and then they are simply hard to plant). Meanwhile, you get hares in 5 turns, and after that it's even faster due to synergies for adjacency (~4 turns in reality).
If you add the bacteria synergy and possibly other synergies and take into account the rounding of values, it will get even faster. 3 turns for hares is quite common. I was able to see 2 turns and I recall 1 turn (for a regular spread, not replacement) vaguely also.
Herring is also 8 turns. Only elephants and whales are 12 turns. All other animals (except hares, duh) are 8 turns.
You can get animals almost immediately, if you use any of the "import lifeforms" actions and have a bit of luck. The hardest part is the water for the spreader, but you'll basically need just a single one to rush it, due to how fast the hares spread.
Also, they will give you synergy for the bacteria spreading, and even for the plants later on also.
I've already written about that above. You get O2 from cyanophyta and plankton instead. Also, you only need 30 O2 produced in total to be able to win most scenarios (except for Blue and probably also Green path). Even a single rushed cyanophyta spread will give you that ca. T20-T25. Even if you don't rush, it will be still quite quick IMVHO.
The thing is, you can switch lifeforms later on. It's damned quick if you have all the synergies. With vault+hares+cyanophyta, replacing cyanophyta with methanogenium (if you need it - I would suggest producing heat from other sources though) is about 4-5 turns for 1 spreader. With the usual 3-4 spreaders, you can virtually replace the entire planet with them in about 10-20 turns. You just need to start doing that as soon as you reach O1 lev 1 IF you didn't get any heat-producing buildings/space projects.
Like I said, it's situational. I seldom prioritize lifeform heroes, but they are a viable alternative if you have already done the legwork (i.e. have at least 2 bacteria spreaders and 1 level of O2) or are planning for them properly.