[BUGS] Or at the very least unintended consequences

from Sins Forums

Ok so I had a very strange situation occur in the last comp stomp I played. I'll try to break it down by color and faction to keep it simple. 

 

I am rebel advent and so is my ally Red. Red is having fun doing what the AI does best right now spamming caps and getting a Titan out. Problem is, blue who is a TEC loyalist has spread culture and taken bases very close to red. Red loses some planets to culture including his starting Terran planet (which had his only capital ship factory). Now red is logistically capped out on his other planets so he can neither build culture structures to retake his planets nor a capital ship factory to keep doing the only thing he knows how. 

 

So I eventually come in and get rid of Blue and move on assuming the culture will settle and Red will retake his territory. Unfortunately, Green (who is a loyalist advent) has the research that spread culture without culture structures and culture spread maxxed. Green's culture starts spreading on the neutralized planets I left behind robbing Red of the opportunity to retake his planets. 

 

Again, Red is pigeon-holed into doing nothing so I come in with my full capacity capital ship fleet and titan. Even though I should have way more than enough repulsion, green's culture is still winning and Red is becoming increasingly outmatched in combat. The only way I was able to save him from losing all planets to culture was to spam deliverance engine shots at his former planets to get rid of green's influence. 

 

As for what I'm not sure are bugs:

 

1. I haven't read the description of the tech, but culture spread on neutrals doesn't seem right. I thought it's main use was to spread culture on owned planets without the need for the culture structures.

 

2. Even when red had the ability (and a essentially unlimited resources), he refused to make anything but caps even when he couldn't use his capital ship factory. I know this is still expected behavior but the AI should at least figure out how to use what it has instead of just twiddling it's thumbs until it dies. 

 

3. When I fired the deliverance engine, it gave me an incorrect error. There was a planet I tried to fire at that I did not have vision of and it gave me the error that you can't fire at planets without population (which is wrong because that's how I freed up my ally's uncolonized pop planets in the first place. 

8,704 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

Capital ships shove culture out of unowned gravity wells...

this was an early balance issue that addressed the problem that you mentioned, a player could get locked from expanding by another empire's culture generation...

if that player didn't have a capital ship to use to help push outwards, then his game is essentially over and you should probably just ignore him...

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

That's just it. I brought a whole capital fleet and titan over to push the culture back and all 12 of them plus the titan could not push back the neutral culture output of the loyalist advent player. Literally the only way to push it back was to use the deliverance engine. 

 

I consider it broken that it takes an endgame super weapon to colonize any planets after a loyalist advent has that research done and that TEC cannot colonize any neutral planets outside their immediate borders. 

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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Sure it was just the neutral culture output? If they have occupied enough other planets with reseach centers and fleet factories they just put one tradeport on the next planet and fill it up with temple of communions. Seen Desert planets with 7 to 8 of them, pushing back that kind of pressure requires your own temple or some military intervention (aka "blowing shit up").

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Green was on the other side of the map and had no structures or capital ships to spread culture there. I'll take a screenshot real quick to help explain it. 

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

http://steamcommunity.com/id/R3DT1D3/screenshot/560938460031987771

 

Blue had the arctic planet originally but I cleared it out. Then Green's culture started spreading from it before red colonized it and eventually neutralized that terran planet and moon. It even threatened the asteroid later in the game. Green was at least 6 phase lanes of other culture away and as you can see he has no culture or ships on those planets. 

 

I assume global unity working on neutral worlds is a bug as its description mentions your (you being the player) worlds not all worlds. 

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

Can't put a starbase there spam some culture goodness from that source?

 

Edit: Didn't notice neutral worlds would do it (never had the case where any neural worlds would be left). Wonder if the case is just that all planets spam the culture (in that case if you took down all your temples your planets would start spreading it, too :p)