Queue buildings from the Objects menu

[Sloth]

I was certainly keeping that in mind, isn't that kind of the whole point of my making an issue about this building? If you think my suggestion isn't good enough, please suggest something you deem better.

My approach would be to play it safe for 0.4.5 and leave the instant max effect of the Megalith as it is (as long as it affects a single planet, micromanagement can't really be an issue), and enforce the once per empire rule. And here is a suggestion how to do that:

The Megalith can only be build on a planet with the Imperial Palace and when the Palace is gone the Megalith destroys itself. If you want to move your capital you have to rebuild both.

... it needs to be more expensive and much much cooler for the rest of the galaxy (but I'd reduce the supply boost to 1), ...

I'm very much in favor of reducing the supply boost to 1, but i don't like the idea to give it an empire-wide effect that once again favors the empire already winning (like nearly all building in FO do).

What I'd like to do is reduce the maximum possible for all, plus increase the growth rate so that newish colonies are more important whereas existing colonies tend to be at the (much lower) maximum. If the meter growth is tied, as population growth is slower if you're smaller.

I definitely want to slow down the steamroller, but I also think having all these cool potential things that give you bonuses is pointless if you're never going to get most of the bonus before the game is over in the overwhelming majority of systems. Hence reduce all the bonuses after the very early game, but make it quicker to get to them.

Sorry Mat, but i'm really really shocked! What you suggest here is exactly what would increase the steamroller effect. You can't really mean that!

But yes, let's discuss this in a post 0.4.5 threat.

[Dilvish]

My approach would be to play it safe for 0.4.5 and leave the instant max effect of the Megalith as it is (as long as it affects a single planet, micromanagement can't really be an issue), and enforce the once per empire rule.

How is constantly building something and tearing it down in order to rebuild it someplace else not a micromanagement issue?

And here is a suggestion how to do that: The Megalith can only be build on a planet with the Imperial Palace and when the Palace is gone the Megalith destroys itself. If you want to move your capital you have to rebuild both.

That has the benefit of slowing down the tear-down-rebuild process, which matters if we're not making the other changes, and so sounds fine to me. I'm fine with these being the only changes for 0.4.5

[Kassiopeija]

As of now, the Megalith is the only building which grants an insta-meter growth, if you take that function away one interesting game mechanic will also be removed by it.

The supply bonus is irrelevant, at that stage of the game the player already has +3 supply & +2 fuel from various techs in most cases and all ships will always be able to move whatsoever.

TBH I never researched this tech by priority because I thought, the building is a one time thing. Scrapping + rebuilding seems like an exploit to me.
On the other hand, the building itself needs 250 PP + 10 turns to complete - considering meter growth of +3 that cost will not really be justified in alot of instances. Perhaps only huge/large conquered with focus set to industry (research is usually smaller in raw numbers)
Also, the techcosts @ 2.kk RP are *obscene*, esp. considering it's concurrency CCamps is just 72 RP.

How about this:
Make it one per empire + unscrapable.
All planets in the system where it is build reach max meters instantly.
Decrease time to produce to 3-6 turns, so the insta meter growth isn't handicapped too much.
Grant some bonus effects within 200uu or 300uu etc in the vicinity of the Megalith to all planets in the empire, like increased maxtroops or shipsspeed or else. Just not production, it's boring plus there's already enough production in the game.
In a way you could create a special stronghold in your territory

[Kassiopeija]

Other than the Xenophobes who start with Camps, the AI won't use camps until very very late in the game because I don't even have them research it until the last handful of techs, because I don't think it works out very well for them-- the big burst of output is always followed by a big drop as the population falls out. These days the handling is there mostly just to support the flavor for Xenophobes.

TBH when I play Xenophobes I don't use them either, I thought of them being more some kind of Last-Stand Option. The point is I gladly take some pop/prod-penalty if, as a bonus, I get additional races with which I can colonize new planets. Going by one race alone will ultimately mean a boatload of additional PP for terraforming, and many planets can only be colonized late once specific growth techs have been researched. With Trith you'll also loose access to better pilots...

[Sloth]

How about this:
Make it one per empire + unscrapable.

Issue with that has already been pointed out:

..., but also disallowing me to destroy it would prevent from being able to move my capital...?

All planets in the system where it is build reach max meters instantly.

Systems can have lot of planets (what's the max 10?). Micromanagement ensues.

Decrease time to produce to 3-6 turns, so the insta meter growth isn't handicapped too much.

The whole discussion started because Mat thinks the effect of the Megalith is (more than) worth the cost under certain circumstances. It doesn't always have to be good.

Grant some bonus effects within 200uu or 300uu etc in the vicinity of the Megalith to all planets in the empire, like increased maxtroops or shipsspeed or else. Just not production, it's boring plus there's already enough production in the game. In a way you could create a special stronghold in your territory

This suggestion sounds interesting. Troops and planetary shield boni for your empire's "core" are a good fit for the Megalith. Maybe this can replace the supply bonus (or reduce the supply bonus to +1). I haven't decided whether it's better to use starlane distance instead of uu distance.

[Dilvish]

The latest idea, about disincentivizing scrapping of a Magalith due to extending minor defensive-type bonuses to surrounding systems sounds fine to me. I would think it should be a fairly large range, if in uu then something like 400-500.

Here's another thought, again starting with the assumption of having the only-one-at-a-time restrictions. But, rather than forbidding scrapping, we use a special like with ConcCamps so that scrapping leaves a Megalith Remnants behind (could have some kind of minor benefit), and your cost and time for building a new Megalith go up by 1.5^num_megalith_remnants you already own (this could also still fit with the above idea)

[Sloth]

Here's another thought, again starting with the assumption of having the only-one-at-a-time restrictions. But, rather than forbidding scrapping, we use a special like with ConcCamps so that scrapping leaves a Megalith Remnants behind (could have some kind of minor benefit), and your cost and time for building a new Megalith go up by 1.5^num_megalith_remnants you already own (this could also still fit with the above idea)

I support this idea. Well thought-out.

[MatGB]

So, in order to build a new one I have to first scrap my old one (and thus theoretically have no capital building for X turns) or when my new one completes my old one is abandoned?

Thematically I prefer the latter, balance wise I edge to the former, but I definitely like the idea.

[Dilvish]

So, in order to build a new one I have to first scrap my old one (and thus theoretically have no capital building for X turns) or when my new one completes my old one is abandoned?

The Megalith doesn't destroy the Palace. All it definitely does with respect to the Palace is suppress the Palace Construction/Infrastructure effect; it does try to supersede the SetCapital effect, but it looks to me like they need the new EffectsGroup priorities in order to firmly establish which one wins that contest. So if you scrap a Megalith your Palace just resumes full effect as Capital, etc.

For whether you can build, I had been planning on just using the Palace pattern which does not let you build if you already have one existing. Trying to set it up so it up so a new one destroys an old one might be possible, if someone wants to tinker with it, but the Palace pattern seems simpler.

[Dilvish]

The Megalith can only be build on a planet with the Imperial Palace and when the Palace is gone the Megalith destroys itself. If you want to move your capital you have to rebuild both.

I added a single line to the location for the Megalith:

Code: Select all

        Contains Building name = "BLD_IMPERIAL_PALACE"

I don't think we need to worry about making the Megalith automatically self-destruct-- if someone wants to move their capital they will have to manually tear down the Megalith.

[Vezzra]

IIRC the pedia description of the megalith says something like it replaces the Imperial Palace. With that change, it's more something like an "upgrade" or "extension". Maybe we should adjust the description to reflect that...?

[Dilvish]

IIRC the pedia description of the megalith says something like it replaces the Imperial Palace. With that change, it's more something like an "upgrade" or "extension". Maybe we should adjust the description to reflect that...?

Sloth recently updated the description to clarify that the only aspect of the Imperial Palace that the Megalith suppressed/superseded was the Capital-setting aspect. But after this change, the current wording is still a bit off, so, I just adjusted it now.

[Bluehand]

I like the changes that have been proposed so far, though I haven't had the opportunity to test them. Another possibility which I can see working well for the Megalith, and maybe the Palace, is a bonus that grows turn by turn. This would deter players from moving them around, would help keep the capital relevant during the exponential growth of the mid-late game. It also fits the flavor of the capital of a galactic empire, which is accruing wealth and power through the ages.

[MatGB]

OK, the Megalith change is in and I like it, I'm still building more than one in games but it takes time and, thematically, moving your capital around is a choice some empires would choose to make. However, it was a sidetrack from the main idea first proposed. Which I definitely want to come back to.

We want to avoid micromanagement because going around and selecting the same building to be made in multiple places is a royal pain and it's not the game we want to build, there are some games that are all about your buildings (hello Civ), but this isn't one of them.

Currently, both Terraforming and Gaia Transformations are handled as buildings, it's been expressed several times that we want a better way to do it, people've proposed various things including terraforming centres, a focus setting, etc.

I find myself, regularly, going around and terraforming a large number of worlds soon after I've got the tech, and doing the same with Gaia for most if not all of my large & huge worlds and frequently medium sized native homeworlds. It's micromanagement. I want to do it as a) the bonus is worth it and b) the tech's cool and I want to use it.

Allowing the selection of multiple worlds from the objects menu (as you can now with the mass focus change) and then queuing Terraforming is basically using an existing mechanic (buildings and the production queue) but reducing if not eliminating the annoyance of going around and selecting everywhere.

Coding it's way beyond my ken, but it would be a perfectly good solution that would avoid the workarounds that all the other ideas I can remember being proposed use. Thoughts?

[Dilvish]

Allowing the selection of multiple worlds from the objects menu (as you can now with the mass focus change) and then queuing Terraforming is basically using an existing mechanic (buildings and the production queue) but reducing if not eliminating the annoyance of going around and selecting everywhere.

Coding it's way beyond my ken, but it would be a perfectly good solution that would avoid the workarounds that all the other ideas I can remember being proposed use. Thoughts?

I forget why the focus idea didn't pan out before, but what comes to mind now is a focus approach that wouldn't need any new c++ coding at all, just a modest bit of scripting. Basically, the Terraforming Focus would impose some kind of productivity hit and give the planet a 1/8 chance of advancing to the next better environment. (and a lower chance, maybe proportional, if the planet's target values are below what the productivity hit would be). Was something like that already considered and rejected?