Planetary Improvement understood

Building up your world without micro-managing it..

Published on October 16, 2005 By Draginol In GalCiv Journals

Improvements in Galactic Civilizations II are done completely different than the first one. It's probably the most radical change to the game-play and probably the most risky since one of the things that has always helped GalCiv was the lack of micro-management. So we've had to really think about how we want to handle planets.

In GalCiv I, most players (myself included) would just go to the governor and have every planet build everything. This time around, we wanted to limit how many things you could build on a given planet. We also wanted planets to be somewhat unique.

We did this by turning the planet class into a limiting factor. The planet class determines how many useable tiles there are on the planet. A class 10 planet has 10 tiles on it. The number of tiles can be increased by researching Soil Enhancement, Habitat Improvement and Terraforming.

Moreover, some tiles are "special". They are rare but they have major effects. Special tiles include:

Artifacts. These increase research production of any improvement on that tile by 200%. (uncommon).
Fertile Soil. These increase the food production of any improvement on that tile by 200%. (uncommon).
Mineral Rich. These increase the industrial production of any improvement on that tile by 200%. (uncommon)
Mystic Spring. These increase the Morale improvement of any improvement on that tile by 200%. (uncommon)
Ruins. These increase the Cultural improvement of any improvement on that tile by 200%. (uncommon).
Precursor Artifacts. These increase research production of any improvement on that tile by 400%. (rare).
Splendid Soil. Food by 400% (rare).
Rare Elements. Industry up by 400% (rare).
Precursor Library. Research by 800% (legendary).
Precursor Mine. Industry by 800% (legendary).

Uncommon = 1/50 chance of it appearing on a given tile. Rare = 1/200 chance of it appearing on a given tile. Legendary = 1/500 chance of it appearing on a given tile.

In Galactic Civilizations I there were lots of improvements. In Galactic Civilizations II, we are trying to have fewer improvements and those improvements go in a direct upgradeable line. That is, you can set the planetary governor to automatically upgrade a given improvement as soon better version is available. For instance, an Entertainment Network is upgraded to a Multimedia Center which is upgraded to an Extreme Stadium which is upgraded to a Zero-G Stadium. Once you place your initial improvements, you can set this and walk away and you have effectively "zoned" the planet.

However, this time around, we're trying to create more super projects and galactic achievements that do special things. A super project is a planetary improvement that can only be built one time in your civilization. A galactic achievement can be constructed only once by any player. There are also trade goods which can be built on a given planet that provide special abilities that can be traded with other players.

Here are some of the super projects we have in mind:

Spin Control Center. Diplomacy-based super project that causes ships in orbit to be counted at five times their military might strength. The idea is that players who want to take on a diplomatic/culture victory won't have time to build up huge militaries. This way, players can inflate their military strength without having to build the ships. For that matter, the way the diplomacy ability is being handled is that it is going to magnify your actual military might rating as far as your opponents are concerned. This way, players can focus on their cultural domination strategy without having to also build up a huge army.
Tur-Quan Training. This is a galactic achievement that vastly increases the quality of your soldiers making them formidable attackers and defenders during invasions.
The Galactic Privateer. This galactic achievement will protect your trade routes from attack during times of war.
Propaganda Machine. This galactic achievement will double the effect of your starbase cultural modifications.
Hyperion Shipyard. This super project will add + 1 to the base movement of your ships.
United Planets Headquarters. This galactic achievement increases your diplomacy ability by 50%.
Galactic Re-supply Center. This super project increases your ships range by 25%.
Artificial Slave Center (evil civilizations only). This super project increases military production by 50%.
Cultural Exchange Center. This super project doubles a planet's influence. (good civilizations only)
Diplomatic Translators. This trade good increases a player's diplomatic ability by 25%.
Economic Capital. This super project increases tax revenue on a planet by 50%.
Eyes of the Universe. This galactic achievement shows all ships on the mini-map.
Galactic Exhibition. This galactic achievement makes you more persuasive in the diplomacy trade screen giving the perceived value of your trade a 50% boost.
Galactic Guidebook. This galactic achievement causes the survey module to cost 0 so that you can equip any ship with the survey module to explore anomalies.
Starbase Upgrade Center. This super project cuts the time it takes to upgrade ships by 50%.
Galactic Virtual Reality Center. This super project increases morale by 50%.
Gravity Accelerators. This trade good increases the base speed of your ships by +1.
Harmony Crystals. This trade good increases the morale of all your people by 20%.
Miniaturization Center. This super project improves your miniaturization ability by 20% (allowing you to fit more on your ships).
Hyperion Miniaturization Center. This galactic achievement improves miniaturization by a further 15% (giving you the ultimate edge in a fight).
Information Logistics System. This super project increases your logistics ability by 6.
Manufacturing Capital. This super project doubles your manufacturing ability on a given planet.
Omega Defense System. This super project doubles the hitpoints of ships in orbit.
Hyperion Planetary Fleet. This Galactic Achievement allows all your planets to be able to work together as a fleet on defense without the need for a Orbitial Control Center.
Re-education Center. This super project prevents the planet from being able to be culturally conquered.
Orbital Terraformer. This galactic achievement automatically makes all your planets be able to use all the potential tiles on a given planet without the need for individual terraforming.
Political Capital. This super project doubles the cultural influence of the planet.
No Mercy Invasion Center. This galactic achievement eliminates the costs of special invasion tactics (evil civilizations only).
Secret Police Center. This super project automatically adds 20% to your base approval on the given world no matter what.
Empathic Tactical Center. This galactic achievement adds + 1 to the defenses of all ships that have an attack ability in each defense category (good civilizations only).
Mind Control Center. This galactic achievements increases the likelyhood of an alien civilization of defecting to your side by 50%. (evil civilizations only).
Hall of Empathy. When an alien civilization surrenders, the odds that they will surrender to you is doubled. (good civilizations only).
Temple of Evil. This galactic achievement causes half of the "background trade" revenue (revenue that a civilization receives due to the % of the galaxy they control) that a civilization of evil alignment receives to go to you.
Temple of Righteousness. Same as temple of evil but for good players.

Quite a few but the key thing here that is different than GalCiv I is that for the most part, players won't have to interact with most of their planets. They'll "zone" them early on with the various types of improvements (morale building, food producing, research producing, and so on) and let the governors upgrade them on up. Then, as a particular super project or galactic achievement comes available, they'll strategically place that on the handful of key worlds in their civilization. The hope is that there will be little micro management of worlds but instead a more strategic use of those worlds.

Comments (Page 1)

John Hamp

on Oct 16, 2005

Me likey!

stevenutt

on Oct 17, 2005

Looks good. 1 thing though, would it be possible to have a "neutral" version of a super project/galactic achievement. For example if you've managed to stay at around the 45-55 mark through the use of both trading and intimidation you could get the "Balanced Diplomatic Embassy" super project, which gives you both a 20% increase in trade and a 20% increase in military production...

LDiCesare

on Oct 17, 2005

The x2,4 or 8 tiles is a good thing.

Diplomacy-based super project that causes ships in orbit to be counted at five times their military might strength.

This means that a player who knows a given ai has this project build will have an advantage over the ai since he can deduce the power from the military graph. Very easy to abuse imo.

The Galactic Privateer. This galactic achievement will protect your trade routes from attack during times of war.

Should be a trade good so you can protect the incoming trade routes too (or protect these too).

Eyes of the Universe. This galactic achievement shows all ships on the mini-map.

Shouldn't be limited to the minimap. The expand sensor range of GCI looks better than this.

Omega Defense System. This super project doubles the hitpoints of ships in orbit.

Why should that be a super project?

Draginol

on Oct 17, 2005

You don't want Eyes of the Universe to do that because it would slow down the game immensely.

celtic nation

on Oct 17, 2005

I agree with the Neutral empire receiveing some wonders as GC1 tended to require a strategy of either total evil or total good to obtain the best improvements. Unfortunatly life is shades of gray and it would be good if GC2 would have at least some improvements (not necessarily as powerful) to take into account this. Especially as worlds have now become so important if they have alot of tiles that to take a hit of say -40% production just to keep 100% good will hamper players immensly.

The Seer

on Oct 17, 2005

Eyes of the Universe ? Funny, I allready make a ship class named "Eye of the Universe" for long range scanning. No need to put sensors on other vessels

(Except long range ships if the galaxy sizes are indeed going to be a lot bigger

)

Popup Target

on Oct 17, 2005

I still think that having to come back to every colony you've got whenever you've got a new improvement available (as opposed to an upgrade of an existing one) is going to be a pain. Shoehorning in a seperate system for reserving tiles for specific, automatic, future use is probably too much work, so I'm thinking I'll ask for something a little simpler.

How about zero-cost, zero benefit improvements that can be placed before you get the real improvement? So, since you don't start with the ability to build banks, there would be an improvement that costs nothing, affects nothing, and which its only purpose is to be later upgraded to a bank. If you've already got the code to let govenors upgrade existing tiles, that is most of the work. You'd just need to add new improvements, some artwork, and check out other parts of the game to make sure that an improvement with no cost doesn't blow up. (actually, having a cost of the minimum possible positive value would probably also work, as that should always get done in one turn).

This way, when I get "Interstellar Banking" my govenors can start upgrading my placeholders to real banks.

I still don't get a way to specify priorities, but I think this would be an improvment.

Frogboy

on Oct 17, 2005

Popup Target -- Trade Centers already do that for banks. They upgrade to banks (or do in beta 4).

Saber Cherry

on Oct 17, 2005

Sounds like fun

I agree that some perks for neutrality could be interesting... I'm thinking of a galactic achievement called the "The Map of the Illogical Mind." This would open a new tech line of psychic weapons that shred the minds of double-thinking zealots. In combat, they'd deal damage proportional to the squared deviation from neutral alignment, to both the attacking and defending ships. So a race at alignment 50 would take no damage; at 60 or 40 a negligible 100 units of damage; and at max good or evil, 2500 units of damage.

A "Temple of Galactic Balance" that moves all races gradually toward neutrality might be interesting as well... it would eventually deny good and evil races their specials, if they do not resist the pull.

As for the "Spin Control", it's not necessarily simple to detect spin. A sudden 5X power jump would be obvious to humans. However, let's assume:
Some random target number "T" between 3x and 6x is selected.
The observed power of the military slowly advances from 1 to T over several (perhaps 10 or 20) turns.
Once T is achieved, a new value of T is selected, and the drift begins again.

This is similar to the way the US government used to obfuscate the GPS signal; even if you know the maximal deviation, you can't pin down the enemy's strength. And because of the slow initial rise, you can't tell when - or even be certain if - the enemy has built such a device. It would be even simpler (programming-wise) to pick single random target number T, jump there immediately, apply the change retroactively across the history graphs as though the Spin Control Center were built a long time ago, and then keep T constant... which would offer some degree of secrecy from humans, though not as good as drift. Spin is generally used to change history, after all.

As for special tiles... will they ever have special resources? Like Adamantium and Nightshade in MoM, or Ivory and Aluminum in Civ3. I don't know how they would integrate into the game, but tiles with special specials (rather than %bonus specials) would be fun...
Also, how about cursed/blessed tiles? I'm thinking about things like the Mines of Moria. For example:

City of Sin: An ancient city, destroyed by some vile forgotten sorcery, lies in ruins. Though unfit for industry or habitation, scientists and priests and tourism developers are fighting for control of such a fascinating area, each claiming amazing benefits in their respective fields. However, the taint of evil remains, and will slowly infuse any soul that remains too long.
If developed, provides 200% bonus to research, culture, or morale... and slowly moves your civilization toward evil.

Core-Worm Complex: The tunnels left by native core-worms are filled with their valuable nickel-iron droppings. The worms themselves appear to be hibernating in the molten core, or extinct... if they awaken, who knows what might happen?
If developed, gives 800% to industry, but every turn risks awakening the core-worms, who might kill half the planetary population and prevent access to planetary minerals (no industry) for years.

Transoceanic Spawning Grounds: All animals on the planet return here eventually to spawn in the mineral-rich waters fed by subsea thermal vents. This amazing phenomenon attracts tourists and big game hunters from around the galaxy. The area could be farmed for huge amounts of food, or developed into a tourist resort complex for the wealthiest people in the galaxy; however, with development comes the continual risk of destroying that environment and thus all animal life on the planet (-50% to all agriculture).

Mount Olympus: The tallest mountain in the known galaxy. What better place to build a Galactic Achievement? Any Galactic Achievement placed here will please the Gods, immediately causing a positive event and decreasing your chances of negative events (by, perhaps, 20%) as long as the structure stands.

-Cherry

Simplicity2

on Oct 17, 2005

No, Spin Control is *far* easier to abuse than that.

Step 1: Build a large military.
Step 2: Don't build Spin Control. Find the idiot who did.
Step 3: Take it. If it's balanced, then it should be no harder to take it than it would be to take a well-defended planet from an opponent who focused on military.

Now, you have a large military AND a five times multiplier. Oops.

Sorry, but this seems a poorly thought out galactic achievement.
Diplomacy is viable... but only if you happen to be the only civilization focusing on it and you happen to get the achievement done before anyone else. I don't think you can make diplomacy viable by giving military multipliers...
You have to give diplomats different options.

Frogboy

on Oct 18, 2005

The point of the diplomat option is to stave off attack while you focus on a cultural domination strategy.

You can only fit 10 or so ships in orbit of a given world, if you have the largest military before and take over the planet then as a % you've done little to change your status.

Being the biggest military and having spin control gains you nothing.

Simplicity2

on Oct 18, 2005

You don't have to have the *largest* military for this be a large advantage.
If you have weak ships (because you're a diplomat) then this GA makes those ships
viable for defense. But if you have *good* ships, then a 5 times multiplier to those ships
makes them just about invulnerable. You don't have to have the best ships. And, as you pointed
out, you don't have to have the most ships (it only affects 10 anyways).

You're selling the GA as an advantage for diplomatic races. It's not. It's an exploit for
militaristic races (it's linearly better for those races with better ships than it would ever be
for the diplomats who underuse it's potential). Consider it this way: once a militaristic race
takes this from the diplomat... Is the diplomat ever going to be able to get it back?

If, on the other hand, diplomats had some option that couldn't just be taken and used to greater
effect by militaristic races, the strategy becomes more viable; for example, the ability to "spend"
culture points on great works (art, music, holo-vids, whatever.) that provide benefits like GAs but
are not associated with a city. But these GAs are only accessible to people who have the culture
points to sacrifice, and cannot be captured once created.

Or maybe Spin Control requires a certain amount of culture to build or gain the effects of.

Perhaps there's some other option that's easier to implement in the limited time frame. I'm just trying
to think of examples I don't think would be exploitable by someone with a better military.

kryo

on Oct 18, 2005

There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding of the Spin Control Center going on. From what Brad has said, and what he wrote in the description, you can see that it does NOT alter the actual combat effectiveness at all of the ships at that planet. It makes them *LOOK* more powerful--i.e., it boosts your line higher on the military power graph than it actually should be (and the Strongest/Strong/Average/Weak/Weakest rating on the diplomacy screen probably gets boosted as well). The ships are in actuality still weak, however. Thus this wonder is almost completely useless to you if you've already got the highest military rating, since it just makes it go higher (and if you've got a large military you won't be fitting much of it on one planet anyway).

The Spin Control Center just lets a kitten roar like a lion... but it still only has a kitten-sized bite. A Lion can already roar like one, so the wonder is pretty useless to him

The idea though, is that you won't know the kitten is not a lion unless you go and find out (which is risky if it really is a lion!).

Ugleb

on Oct 18, 2005

What Darth Kryo said, Spin Control means the owner can bluff that he has a much larger military than he really does and so avoid being attacked. If he still gets attacked then hes no better off than if he didn't own it.

LDiCesare

on Oct 19, 2005

You don't want Eyes of the Universe to do that because it would slow down the game immensely.

Then you have a problem with the game proper. What will happen when someone has put scouts just about everywhere and would see the whole map? Will the game run at snail pace? Eyes of the universe essentially ment in GC that instead of using 20 scouts you could use 10 war vessels. If that's going to be too slow, how can 20 scouts not be slow?

Spin Control looks broken to me. On a tiny rare map, you will look like having 5 times more ships than you do. The ai will fear you and not attack you, game over. If the ai builds it. They think they are safe, and from other ai's they are. You look at them with your scout. Realise they have two crappy ships whereas you have 5. So you are twice as strong as them and not the opposite, thanks to all the money they diverted into building that project. You conquer them, get the planet and the improvement, and win.
Now on a huge densely populated map. +4 fake planets = about nothing, useless. So it's broken to the sole advantage of the player on tiny maps and worthless on big maps. The only way it could be useful is if the boost was big and not detectable as being fake. Trust humans to find out such a thing. At the very least, the military rating should drop back to normal value if the star can be seen and its actual ships seen too. Which would make it worthless on small maps as you'd have to kill incoming scouts and thus declare war.

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