First Impressions & Concerns Thread

[SephiRok]

Yeah, the AI only gets stronger by cheating through bonus morale which doesn't matter for a while. If we make morale once again influence growth it would help a bit more, but maybe we could also give a bit of a starting resource bonus to the AI.

[fortydayweekend]

Military win as Divine Ascension on Small Pangaea with High Alien Aggression. I got a Devourer & a Galeth, cleared some hives (lost the Galeth), then rushed TS's ATVs with Avenger Tanks. A few more tanks took down Noxium (using Devourer as first attacker to take out his strongest tank). At this point I had a 5-star economy, had caught up in tech, massive territory, so could've probably won any way I wanted. James had a slightly bigger army but stayed friendly. Togra were the last to go, my gatling-gun aircraft vs his 30 colonial troopers. Artillery & bombardments would've made my job really easy but the planes were enough. The AI made some strange decisions, sending his best tanks out of his cities to take out my units and leaving them vulnerable to counterattack. And building massive stacks of missile troopers when my army was mainly gatling-planes and gatling-tanks, almost like he wanted them to die

In another game as SD I've held off a big Ascension attack (by retreating to defend my cities) and am ready to either counterattack or sue for peace and go for economic win - I'm ahead on everything else and now even on military.

Early rushes are very powerful, even for the AI, the only times I've lost have been against Ascension or Imperium after they conquered about half the map and their economy was unstoppable. Conquered cities could maybe use longer morale penalties (even permanent penalties relative to the size of the city when conquered?)

I think with the way diplomacy works once you get into a position of strength it's easy to maintain it as no-one will challenge you. But if you fall behind, someone will try to take advantage. If you get a good start Very Hard isn't very hard.

Also sure that bigger maps are probably harder than Small, I prefer quick games so that's what I usually play. Might try a Standard map next though.

[adamsolo]

Yeah, the AI only gets stronger by cheating through bonus morale which doesn't matter for a while.

How about buffing the headquarters defense strength, from say current 50% to 100% (or even more)? That should hold off early wipes, either from the AI or the Human, or at least it should make it much harder to take opponents early completely.

If we make morale once again influence growth it would help a bit more, but maybe we could also give a bit of a starting resource bonus to the AI.

I think that morale should influence growth, yes. As low morale should hinder it. As in Napolean's quote in one of the techs: "Spirit is stronger than the Sword". Morale could even play a role in army effectiveness. Something like Civ5's global happiness where there could be a global morale indicator which if goes below 0 gives a penalty to all armies. -5 morale could be -15%, -10 morale -25% strength, etc. The idea is not to make Civ5 again, but one has to admit that they have great ideas. And, with the good foundation you have here, you can take these ideas and perfect them, if you wish.