Nomination thread: New features and bugfixes for Yitzi's patch 3.6

[Yitzi]

"How should it work?  Normally, the reaction is supposed to happen immediately...so for PBEM, what is a better approach than PMing the target and asking him what to select for said reaction?"

Basically, in PBEM, the AI runs a player's faction during other players' turns. This AI can't conduct normal diplomacy, but it does have some influence. Suppose all players are human and the Peacekeepers attack the Hive. The Morganites, who are allied to both players, might very well have their AI declare war on the Peacekeepers. It's not a huge problem but it can get your units expelled from friendly territory. During sunspot activity, it can be a true pain.

To answer your question, suppose the Peacekeepers send a probe into the Hive instead of attacking. The Hive detect the probe. Currently, the Peacekeepers will get a little message asking whether they'd prefer to downgrade relations or to let themselves off with a stern rebuke. Can we delay the message to appear at the start of the Hive's turn?

That could be done...but then if the Hive decides to downgrade relations to vendetta, it happens at the beginning of the Hive's turn, meaning they get first strike capability...which is extremely different than the way "vendetta as a response to probe team actions" works for non-PBEM games.

Therefore, I'll include it as a nominated feature if you want, but it seems better to me to have the Peacekeepers PM the Hive saying "I just probed you, such-and-such happened, now are you going to declare Vendetta or just let it off with a stern rebuke?", and select based on that...as that way, the Vendetta will happen immediately after the probe action, just like in a non-PBEM game.

[Yitzi]

I'm making enough progress that the voting thread is up here; as such, nominations are closed unless MercantileInterest wants to replace one of his existing feature nominations with "probe-team-caused vendettas are declared on the victim's turn in PBEM".

[MercantileInterest]

No. Don't want to replace any nominations. Don't mind arguing pointlessly, though. To continue the example, if Peacekeepers are detected, they can still decide to take the first strike. It's not a big deal. My group uses multiplayer rules almost exactly like those you describe.

[Yitzi]

No. Don't want to replace any nominations. Don't mind arguing pointlessly, though. To continue the example, if Peacekeepers are detected, they can still decide to take the first strike.

How?  If the decision isn't made until the beginning of the Hive's turn, then the next faction able to take the first strike once the decision is made is the Hive.

[Mart]

I'm not sure, if this was mentioned:

- ability to turn off so-called "mineral unity pod." The one, that gives minerals to the closest base up to completion.
Usually it is tedious to micromanage bases to get the largest amount of minerals one can. Not to mention abusing this feature to instabuild Secret Projects by inserting into building item some very expensive unit/crawler.
Some unity pod outcomes get possibility of turning them off in the scenario editor, but not this one.
Alternative would be to cap minerals at some quantity. 20? 30? or 40? Yet this would not eliminate micromanagement.

[vonbach]

Would it be possible to get extra resources out of forests with high planet same as with fungus?

[Yitzi]

I'm not sure, if this was mentioned:

- ability to turn off so-called "mineral unity pod." The one, that gives minerals to the closest base up to completion.
Usually it is tedious to micromanage bases to get the largest amount of minerals one can. Not to mention abusing this feature to instabuild Secret Projects by inserting into building item some very expensive unit/crawler.
Some unity pod outcomes get possibility of turning them off in the scenario editor, but not this one.
Alternative would be to cap minerals at some quantity. 20? 30? or 40? Yet this would not eliminate micromanagement.

Manipulating pod outcomes is definitely possible, but nominations for 3.6 are closed by now.
So would be capping minerals from the pod.
So would be having the pod give enough minerals to build whatever you were building at the start of your turn.

Would it be possible to get extra resources out of forests with high planet same as with fungus?

Absolutely, but nominations for 3.6 are closed by now.