rlared12

Join Date 09/2015

Thoughts and Questions on 1.6 and Mercenaries

Bought the Mercenaries DLC and the Precursor Worlds DLC yesterday, updated to 1.6 and played for a few hours. I think it's a major improvement and step forward for GC3! I was skeptical about the mercenaries but I think they add a very fun component to the game. Also I really like the Precursor worlds a lot. . . they add a lot of variety. So overall I think both DLC's are worth the money and I am pleased with them. The game is now much more fun and interesting for me. I also really like the changes with coercion. . . feels much more balanced now.

I do have some additional questions:

1) There are multiple Bazaars. How do I choose which Bazaar I want the mercenary to come from?

2) Is there some explanation of how influence adds up? If you have 3 planets in a certain area, is there a way to figure out how much influence you will be exerting on a certain hex somewhere? Do influence starbases work on their own or do they only act to enhance a planet's influence that's within their range?

Also some issues:

1) I played with 5 AI's and only one so far has bought a mercenary, and they only bought one. Not sure if this is just the game I'm in or a general issue where the AI doesn't really care much about mercenaries?

2) The economy portion still feels unbalanced. I didn't build a single economic structure and really didn't have any issues at all. Restricting the ability to sell techs would definitely help. Being able to sell techs for large sums of money to the minor races seems like an exploit to me. There should be an option to restricted from the tech trading. In fact, I may disable them altogether as they don't seem to have much of a purpose other than to provide high quality planets for invasion later unless I'm missing something?

3) Can't wait for 1.7 to address starbases and constructor spam. The strategy part is fun for a little while in the beginning when you're locking down resources but after a while it becomes a big micromanaging pain.

4) I wish you could tell planetary governors to convert a planet from one focus to another. So if I set it up as an industrial planet but now I want it to be all research, it should have the option to replace the buildings and set the planetary focus in an intelligent way.

5) On normal difficulty, AI makes some dumb military strategy choices. For example, they don't assemble fleets, they just fly one ship at a time towards my fleets. Also they choose to not try to attack my transports for some reason. Maybe I just have it set too easy.

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neilkaz

Join Date 06/2011

1) All the bazaars offer the same Mercs. The selection of Mercs available will vary from game to game somewhat.

2) I don't quite understand it either. Sometimes when I mouse over a hex near AI zones of control it tells me what % influence I have and what % they have, and other times I see nothing. Devs or those with more experience can hopefully explain.

1) You may need to play on a higher level. You sound experienced so give Genius a try. I play Incredible and the AI's do buy some Mercs, but not as much as one would expect. Then again, if they bought them all, the player wouldn't be able to experience nearly as much as I think the Devs intend with this DLC.

2) There's an option to restrict tech trading when you set up the game as I expect you know. Yeah, maybe an option to restrict it with Minors as well is needed, but no one is forcing you to trade with Minors.

3) I play in large galaxies so while there's lots of SB micro, it isn't overwhelming compared to enormous maps, and I help things out by making constructors mostly with 2 modules ASAP.

4) I don't use governors, but then again don't mind the micro and don't play huge.

5) Try Genius level and if you clobber that, step up to Incredible. I'm often clobbering Incredible so soon will step up to Godlike to get my head handed to me .

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Quoting neilkaz,

reply 1

1) All the bazaars offer the same Mercs. The selection of Mercs available will vary from game to game somewhat.

Thanks for the response. On the mercs. . . my question was if I can actually choose which Bazaar I want the mercs to pop out of? That way I get the merc where I need him quicker.

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The_Last_Jedi

Join Date 12/2005

+24

Mercs appear at the homeworld.

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Quoting neilkaz,

reply 1

to view comparative influence totals you cannot have any ship, base, etc selected. Also you need to point at an open tile not a base or fleet.

I don't know the formulas for how it spreads and adds up, but I can describe the behavior. Influence expands in all directions simultaneously and infinitely. The farther from the source the fewer points per turn. When two zones of control (zoc) meet they appear to stop moving and form a border, but this is an illusion. The influence is still going. So if the edge of your zoc hits an enemy mining base, which has a small bit of influence but that never increases, you will watch your influence appear to go around it and slowly shrink down its zoc. But if you hover over the tiles around the mine, you can see your own influence building in those hexes and if someone blows up the mine, all of its influence will go away leaving only yours. You won't have to "re-expand" starting at the old border. That's why I used the word illusion above.

Planets and cultural starbase generate influence every turn. All other starbase exert a one-time fixed amount of influence only inside their range. Cultural bases appear to match a planet (obviously racial mods, buildings, tech etc all come into play) with up to 15 population that is focused on production or tech. If it has multiple influence buildings or if it gets too high a population then a stock culture base is going to lose.

I find that three cultural bases with three culture upgrades surrounding a hostile planet can always culture flip it eventually unless it is immune.

Resistance appears to factor into culture flipping. If you are losing a p?anet to enemy influence then building culture upgrades is a long term solution, but it might not work fast enough. Instead, as long as you get over 100% resistance before your world goes to 100% rebellion you will not culture flip. THEN build the influence structures and start pushing back the borders. I do not know if the ai resistance works the same way or not, but I have confirmed this is how it works for the player and I assume it is the same for the ai.

If you have three world's you can check a tile over the course of several turns to see how much influence they are exerting at that distance. The planet window for each world also gives your base influence generation, but that is less helpful.

If you look at the "tactics" thread I put some detailed notes and screenshots on how to attack with influence. I'm no master, not by any measure, but I believe the advice is solid.

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Influence:

for simplicity lets start with only 1 planet with 60 Inf points. T 6 tiles around (ring) that planet get 60/6 =10 inf pts each, the next ring of 12 tiles get 60/12 =5 pts. this continues infinitely. Add a second planet and it works the same way, each tile on the map now gets the sum of the points form planet 1 & 2. S Bases have a small amount of inf and work the same way, Culture ones are the best and increase C Pt generation of any planer in their coverage zone. The game does this for every entity on the map for each civilization (except minors) each and every turn.

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