POLL: Environmental Effects - Engaging or Disruptive?

I almost don't want to suggest this.

But I kinda want sandworms.

Yes and not.

Some of the most interesting historical battles have been determined upon a Natural event, like a Tsunami during the war against Japan and Korea.

In a small scale, a match should probably not be affected by such a dramatic change in the progression of a small conflict or confrontation between two or few players.

But on a larger scale, like for the Galactic War, why not?

As long as we can switch it off.

A Dune mod for Planetary Annihilation would be so damn cool. Here some Lego, 'cos Lego are damn cool, too.

good idea to start something like this... I always thought there was room in the game for weather effects and disasters like falling ash from volcanoes, tornados ect..

Absolutely, I could so see that coming.... awesome!

What if killing the sandworms gave you a ton of spice metal or something?

Don't most lifeforms produce more energy when reclaimed?

Just make it like TA. And meteor storms please.

SWEET JESUS CHRIST NO!

I am sorry but the meteor storms in TA were the single worst thing in the world, especially with TA buildings and units being very vulnerable.

I have had games where meteors instantly destroyed starting bases of players and even killing commanders.

Not to mention poking the bear in the SP campaign and having 20 gunships kill your commander 1 minute in!

LOL nothing wrong with a good meteor storm to keep you on your toes. I used to think it was hilarious back in the day.

Think meteor storms would be actually one of the more logical disasters this sort of game should have considering the nature of space systems and orbital planetary bodies, which will have asteroids at some point.

I am opposed to environmental effects that alter gameplay.

Imagine winning a match and then lose it because a volcano erupts and destroys your base and/or commander.

That's not strategy. That's not balanced gameplay. That's losing because of a random event. That is bad for competitive gameplay, or even casual gameplay.

Any random event that alters gameplay is bad.

The only way it would maybe work is if they were symmetrical on symmetrical planets. But I'd probably be opposed to that as well.

I think that is due to the way planets are modeled. If I recall correctly they use constructive solid geometry and if they have to use the planet shape for a lot of computations (collision, pathfinding,...) the added complexity might get out of hand real fast. That said fewer but more prominent planet features might very well do the trick here.

More a fan of chess than poker I reckon?
Trick question: Is a lake, chasm, mountain not a gameplay-altering environmental effect? Why don't you oppose those?
Anyhow: You seem to imply that an erupting volcano would destroy everything in a large area. Nobody said such a thing. It is supposed to be a local event, if you choose to build your base at the feet of a volcano for whatever reason (higher energy output? dangerous to enemy aircraft due to ash eruptions?) you are aware of the risks, i.e. damaging eruptions around it.
If you don't want to cope with the risk just stay clear of the thing. And why should mountains, water bodies and chasms be allowed to be distributed asymmetrically but not extensions of those areas?

I do prefer chess a lot more than poker.

It's not a trick question.

Mountains and chasms are very very different than an erupting volcano in two ways.

1: They don't destroy my base
2: They are a constant. They don't change and they aren't random.

I never implied any sort of area. And area is relative. What's a lot of area on a small planet isn't worth mentioning at all on a large planet.

Even then. The topic of random events has been brought up at least half a dozen times and each and every time was rejected by the community.

Random events have absolutely no place in competitive gameplay.

Also. The whole tier thing of this poll is pretty broken and biased.

I may support biome bonuses, but I'm opposed to fog, and may support terrain modifiers like tanks slow in the forest.

Poll results are flawed. Difficult to have accurate poll results anyways.

Pardon me cherry picking here: None of the aforementioned effects has to be random. Besides, games with random elements and competitive games are not mutually exclusive. You don't like randomness but that doesn't make it objectively bad.
And just out of curiosity - why do you oppose fog despite it being local, non-random, non-temporary?
The poll is inherently biased, though.

How can fog not be random? Fill the entire planet at once? Or are you talking about adding a new biome? If so, we should talk in a different thread because a new fog biome is 100% different than a random event.

Don't put words in my mouth. I love the randomly generated planets. That's a good thing. I don't like random events. Key and big difference.

How is random event good in a competitive gameplay? Losing because a random even takes out your base is a bad thing. PA is supposed to be about strategy, not a coin toss on who gets the random events in their favor.

We are not talking about random events here we are talking about environmental effects. If you want to get hung up on the notion of random armageddon leveling your base this is not the place because this is not what environmental effects are about.
On to the fog: What is random about fog? Why should it be everywhere? It should be contained to certain biomes or biome transitions such as water to jungle, water to mountains, where fog aggregation makes sense intuitively.
And if there are to be random events, why should they be global, why should they destroy your stuff? Just because someone starts talking about meteorite showers - which are a terrible idea - that doesn't mean that every environmental effect has to be random, disruptive and destructive.

Tier 4 is random events.

"Volcanoes, Tornadoes, Acid Rain, Lava/Sea Flooding. Arguably the most disruptive to game-play and sure to be modded whatever happens."

That's events that destroy bases.

Environmental effects is Tier 2/Tier 3.

Fog as an addition to a biome would be different. I'd be opposed to it simply because with today's technology we can see through the fog, super advanced robots would be able to as well.

OP's original post implied heavily of randomized events that alter gameplay and destroy units. That is bad.

If there's random events that don't do anything, then what's the point? Just eye candy?