Sorry, meant to comment in one message but accidently submitted.



I don't understand how Logistic affect the cost of building a starbase. I think the cost of building a starbase, be it 0 or X credits should be static. The cost of maintaining them should grow with their numbers, that would be logistics. I know this is often cheaper in the long wrong, but this just doesn't make much sense.



The new mechanism is just very ugly from a UI perspective. Having to confirm each upgrade is a real pain in the neck. If it's going to cost money to build modules there should be an option to auto-accept because when I upgrade starbases I tend to do it with 10+ constructors at a time, and confirming each selection is annoying.



Haven't noticed yet, but this sounds like a good thing. Starbases were extremely vulnerable in the late game before, especially considering their costs.



Again, the old system is flawed, but this new system makes a cultural attack either impossible, or so expensive that no one in their right mind would do it. This eliminates one method of attacking an opponent, and takes away options from the player. I'm not sure this is a good solution either. I had thirteen party palaces adjacent to a sector and was unable to even have the influence change me to me, let alone flip a planet. Considering the costs of starbases and modules, clearly this type of attack is basically just no longer an option.

I am saddened by these changes to starbases because I think it eliminates a method of attack. I don't like it when options are taken away. The method was flawed before and abused, but that just means it should be refined, not destroyed.

I think the cultural attack should remain an option in the game. However the only way it can remain in the game is if the AI become smarter to recognize it though. Without the latter, it WILL be abused. THat was the real problem in the old builds. You could build right in the heart of their empire and flip all their planets and they wouldn't say anything.

I sincerely hope this is balanced better in future builds. As a player who is extremely familiar with the cultural attack I would be more than happy to offer feedback and help in balancing it if you ever want it from me, either here in the forums or in email, at [email protected] .

I moved the paragraphs in this message around, I hope they still make sense.

Great, so that makes them even worse, more cheesy holes.

You know a lot of people complain that starbases are too weak, and I agree with them. Ever think of making an upgrade to add armor to a starbase, so you could increase the Hit Points? That sounds like a perfect solution! The fact that the starbases have less hit points than some ships seems kind of silly.

Culture bombing isn't that badly crippled by the new influence changes, in fact I think I like them. The only time I've actually noticed a halt in my cultural onslaught is during a push into a heavily populated sector, ie: one with two or more high pop 22+ planets.

In prior versions I've been able to park two or three party palaces in an adjacent sector and bomb my way into *any* alien culture.

This used to bother me, it's not really sensible that my 3 party palaces can overpower any alien culture. What I notice now is that I *have* to get a toehold with a pq11/12/13 in an adjacent sector and then build the party palaces there, that trick almost guarantees a flip. Woe unto the AI that leaves me a late game pq12 (or even an 11) in a sector adjacent to one of its planets.

ps: for real fun try colonizing some of the enemy's pq12's late game when you're doing a 100% social wonder/tg rush, drop no more than 10m colonists on each (I like 5m). they won't overpop any time soon and during your social rushes you build them up awfully quickly. I used to use two governors for this, one for hostile cultural territory that built soil,hab,news,ent,stad,spin,tele, secret police, etc (the important part was to build PQ and cultural resistance fast) and another governor that built pq/morale/econ boosters for planets in safe territory. I never really bothered with shipyards or any maint heavy improvements.
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I will try again as you describe, my attempt in my first game with 13 starbases was a complete disaster, and a waste of about 150 constructors.

Maybe I'm being too hasty in my findings.

Yes I agree I hope this can be done.



As I mentioned in our thread it is sad to see paths to a win eliminated.

I don't know what to say about the late game minor races, I've been exploiting them when they do pop up: just feed them every single trade good you've got in exchange for their entire bank balance over 25 turns then ship a transport their way - by the time you arrive they're so bankrupt they won't ever be able to build anything to defend themselves. No need to even use a combat transport, just rush a regular old transport on your closest world (likely there's a friendly pq14 within a couple of sectors) and send ~400m troops, free yellow system.

For even more cheese you could build influece boosters on this fresh yellow star then drop a couple of party palaces in the same sector (assuming no alien worlds)

instant culture bomb, just add minor

Yes, the late minors are really useless at this point. In my previous game, I just had a fleet of transports running around to the minors that seemed to be popping up quite frequently (in my large map). I kept getting free planets. I never traded them anything, but they still were no match for me, so clearly it was just a free planet.

I just won one of the AP campeign scenerios via culture flood. It's really not any harder to do now than it was before, you just can't use half a dozen starbases with one module to accomplish it. The modules are still relatively cheap, and there are still enough without costs to build up culture significantly.

~SDC~

Aha! Yep. That works. Perhaps 'reset' needs a more intuitive name like 'load campaign' since at least 2 of us misunderstood it.

"Perhaps 'reset' needs a more intuitive name like 'load campaign' since at least 2 of us misunderstood it."

I second this idea.

I always use party palaces and it's not working, at least not on Masochistic.

I have a game right now that I was testing this in. I colonized two Class 12 planets, terraformed them up to 16, built an embassy and a cultural exchange on both of them. They have about 8000 people on each of them.

Then I built 9 party palaces in the sector. I was able to turn two of the adjacent sectors with a single planet in them to my color, but not still not enough to flip a planet, or even make them rebellious, a 3rd sector has a planet from a different race, and I can't even turn that to my influence!

In my opinion this eliminates the cultural attack as a viable method of attack completely. 2 planets, with the cultural upgrades and 9 party palaces aren't enough to turn an adjacent sector with a single planet. With the new costs for starbases, how much do you think you would have to invest to take a single planet!? That's crazy, you'd be better off invading.

I stick by my first statement, these changes have basically made this form of attack non viable.
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P.S. I saved my save game if anybody at Stardock wants to see it.

Beta 1.49J was refreshed today, but I don't see an update button. I have the previous 1.49J. Anyone else have this problem?

Thanks!

Bill

~SDC~

I don't have AP yet, but I never had problems to make culture flip with only one culture star base per sector in GC.

Try to get these culture trade goods and wonders.

When the only change in AP is that culture star base effects do add instead of multiply it should not be such a big issue.

It does not make sence that I can win every game simply by building a couple of star bases in one sector. I appreciate the change.
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I don't understand the point of your message. You're talking about the old version, and I'm talking about the new version. They are completely different. I can culture flip anything with the old version, and can't culture flip anything with the new version. We went from one extreme to the other.

I also forgot to mention I had 2 of the influence wonders. So two planets with cultural upgrades, 9 party palaces, and two cultural wonders, and couldn't turn an adjacent sector with a single planet.

The point is simple: if you have only one cultural starbase in a sector, the 2 formulas give the same result for this sector
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Sorry, I missed the point. That was irrelevent to my discussion anyway, I had 9 party palaces.

Sorry, I missed the point. That was irrelevent to my discussion anyway, I had 9 party palaces.

Another thing that annoys me in this most recent release, is the way module upgrades work. How come only cultural modules cost extra money? It's obviously just an attempt to stop culture bombing, and inconsitent with other upgrades. Yesterday, I built starbases with a bunch of defensive upgrades, and economic upgrades and I don't think any of them costs money. Why are only cultural upgrades costing extra money?

Question: What factors distinguish each level of difficulty on this new version? ie. challenging, tough, crippling, etc.

I don't know for sure, but... the to get a cultural victory you don't have to flip the AI's planets.

Even if you aren't able to get a large cultural margin in the AI's most heavyli populated sectors, one should still be able to win a cultural victory.

It looks as if the changes were meant to avoid massive flipping of the AI's planets, to get a military victory (i have used this alot myself - in earlier versions, that is)
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I understand that, and even support that!

I think the current implemtation goes beyond what it should though. It makes it so cultural attacks are almost impossible. Although you can still do it, the cost is so high it just doesn't make any sense, so it's virtually eliminated.

I still would like to hear the justification why cultural modules cost extra money beyond the constructor, and no other modules (that I have found) do. That seems like a hack by the developers to attempt to close a hole. The funny thing is, with the current changes, they don't even need this! Cultural attacks are all but eliminted with the new way of calculating influence bonuses even without the extra costs!

Paguma,

I've found one star base, without Party Palace, at one of my host worlds sector to be enough to flip some Altairian massively built up home world and second yellow star (enriched to PQ36 through that world improves event). We both had ONE influence resource. When I took over the Altarian home world, I found the half of Influence wonders that I did not manage to build first.

And half the Military upgrades cost money. All Battle Stations cost 100, Protective Shields cost 100, and half the remain attack enhancers (Dread drones cost 200, but Micro Fighters is still free, for example).

A little less then half of the Culture modules cost any money... But they range from simple 100 to 500 BC (Party Palace, for instance)

I find it strange that about half of the attack improvements and just under half of Culture modules cost money. It seems to me that if half costs, then the other half should as well. Otherwise, why bother?

Modules costing money seem to me to be aimed at the end game constructor rush. No more easily maxing out your economy to produce constructors and popping together full Culture bombing starbases without also popping a few thousand free BC every turn. And that's not counting the SB founding costs going up every turn.

I believe the military attack upgrades costing is also to slow down the instant building of forward assist bases against the new, late game warring.

If that is what it is after, it certainly won't stop the tactic. Or significantly slow it down. Personally, I've found the affect on my gameplay is that I have to throttle back on the Spending slider every once in a while to be able to afford a few modules. But just a turn or two throttled down would be more then enough, and then back up the spending slider goes.

The biggest change I've found by far is that with the inclusion of two new Majors, the speed at which Battleship and Dreadnaught techs are researched has speeded up greatly. In the beginning, I find the AI to be one research machine, trading all their techs around the galaxy in just a turn or two of researching it. In larger galaxy sizes, I've found that the AI has Dreadnaughts already plying its star lanes and fighting its wars before the initial yellow star rush is over.

However, this effect is actually beneficial to the Human. As the AI will trade you Battleship technology easily and cheaply on its own, and will do the same for Dreadnaughts. Several games I've already had the Drengins trade me Battleship Tech for Sensors, and they've never missed offering me Dreadnaughts for Drones as soon as I researched Drones. When I had a Good alignment EARLY in the game, I've had the Torians repeatily give me Battleship technology just cause they like me, and I've had the Altarians repeatily give me Dreadnaughts, just cause they thought "good civs need to stick together". Great for me of course, but still... takes some of the challenge out of the game when even with a 100 good rating, those evil Drengin will TRADE me their Dread tech for my Drones, or the Goodly races will just give it to you out of fairness or charity. And just cause those Drengins would trade me their BS or Dred on their own initiative, that doesn't change you cannot GET the AI to trade it to you by asking them... Strange. Won't let you trade for it, but will give it away or trade it for cheap on their own.

Still, a fun game. I look forward to getting a USB mouse with scroll wheel to so I can design a few maps of my own and try them out.
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I never used the multiple starbase approach to flipping planets, so I haven't noticed anything different. My cultural attacks are still just as nasty.

Bill

~SDC~