Natural Catastrophies

So, I was wondering, we've been discussing weather conditions, would there be massive amounts of destruction brought about by nature?

You know, massive raging wildfires which overheat and damage armies, gigantic tidal waves, hurricanes and flooding rain in response to overpollution by armies. Electric storms which cook metal units, high seas which damage and overturn boats...

All the cool stuff?

I thought that they said they would have nothing like that in the Livestream.

Such things have been talked about a lot, a Search should bring it all up.

Mike

All things I'd love to see in the game!

I don't think we'll see much of that implement until way into Beta if at all.

People have expressed a dislike to random acts of God that can essentially ruin your game, kill your commander etc.

I would love to see these things slow or damage your army though.

Rising sea levels is probably quite interesting as it will completely alter the flow of battles, with people fighting for land based resources which are diminishing and then creating Navies which have to cover more and more sea.

So there are some types of random disasters that we've talked about.

Imagine a map where the planet you start on has one or more other planetary bodies on a collision course for example.

As long as you don't involve any of that random BS ;p

Mike

That's not a random disaster.
Planetary movement is predictable, so it could be interesting from a gameplay-perspective if the players know that it will happen from the start.
Random disasters that hit without warning and have a chance to change the outcome of battle however are pretty bad from a gameplay-perspective.

I know it's not random but it's still a disaster! Sounds way cooler to me than having a random godzilla show up and trash your base.

It's basically a Sudden Death mode.

Not sudden death because you can escape!

The difference between random disaster and predictable disaster is so big that I just had to point this out.

...random Godzilla lol

Sounds interesting to me. Start together with my opponent on a planet that will be crashed into some giant asteroid after 10 minutes or so and fight while escaping. Or maybe focus everything on winning before the asteroid hits. Quite interesting indeed.

Psssh, Godzilla is sooo last century, this day in age, gotta go with a Random Basilisk! xD

Mike

Im surprised you havent made a PA version of that yet

Not gonna put that much time on something until I get a better idea of how it'd slot into the game, just not enough info yet.

Mike

That kind of thing is the only natural catastrophe that I would find reasonable because it isn't throwing the dice on who suddenly gets a disadvantage thrown at them through no fault of their own. I also like the idea of giving such ideas their own game mode.

OP you might find some of these threads interesting:

viewtopic.php?f=61&t=35075&hilit=weather

viewtopic.php?f=61&t=37561

viewtopic.php?f=61&t=37126&start=0&hilit=weather

The general feel in the community seems primarily against introducing game mechanics that introduce randomness and uneven dis/advantages between players.

As far as my opinion on weather and so on I would like to see weather from a cosmetic perspective. I am given to understand that this may come after release but certainly isn't a priority.

I would also probably be ok with prevailing weather conditions on a planet evenly affecting units which are on it. Navy moving slower on icy planets, ground units moving slowly on jungle worlds. It changes the way a player can approach combat on a given world, but it evenly applies these effects across all players on the world (so it is fair) and consistently (so it doesn't disadvantage players at a critical stage). The player would know that units on an icy planet are always going to be subject to X effect and units on a jungle or desert world would have to deal with effects Y and Z.

What would be frustrating and unnecessary is to have a randomly generated natural disaster hamper your ability to fight the enemy when they are sitting pretty on the other side of the planet.

See, I think a little chaos is what RTS players need to push them out their comfort zone a little.

Especially the turtle-ers.

Don't put all your eggs in one basket, all your bases on one side of the planet, or one planet, because you don't know when a flood is coming, a meteor is going to impact or the very land beneath your feet rip open.

If these features entered the game it adds more things for a player to triumph over. It adds more to the game than build orders.

Im grateful there's going to be no linkage in the game too, so I can go back to having nice spread out bases with my factories separate from my storage and resource gathering. It also means I'll have a greater chance of surviving any random acts of Uber.

If anything it will just add to the stories and battle reports.

"...so yeah my base just got nuked by some satellites and I'm repairing my commander who's furiously building factories because I only have two left, and I can see an army of player 2's red T1 tanks rolling over the literal horizon and only a few of my T2 tanks survived, and then the camera shakes and this cloud erupts into the air behind his army, turns out a mountain near his base has erupted spewing lava into his base. So he halts the attack, because he can't follow through with a second punch if I defeat the first wave. So while his army gradually pulls back, I switch to building defences now I have a few tanks rolling off the assembly lines. Ten minutes later and player 2's red tanks are rolling towards my base again just inside range of my arty, and I'm not confident I can beat him back then all of sudden green drop pods everywhere. Player 3 is seeding the battlefield with T2 assault bots. Laser fire everywhere.

"First player to ally with me gets to keep the planet" Player 3 spouts over the chatlog.

"This is our planet, our war, back off!" Player 2 responds.

"Or what?" Player 3 is confident.

"Truce?" I whisper to player 2.

I don't get a response, just a dialogue box popping up asking me if I accept the alliance. I accept and our units stop attacking one another. Player 2 calls his last remaining nukes down in the middle of his army, wiping out all of his army but also Player 3's. Then, a klaxon. I swivel the camera up. An asteroid has moved within range of the planet. From sharing vision with Player 2 I can see from his satellite that the asteroid is covered in green unit cannons and missile launchers but it's still moving towards the planet...

Well, the thing is with natural disasters is that they add some spice and flavor! Yes, it'll occasionally nerf games and make some players disappointed, but a good player will know how to deal with random changes to the status quo like that.

Also,

Natural disasters sound like a bit much. Maybe if it was something you did to the environment that caused it, that would be interesting. Like launching a meteor into an ocean to cause a tidal wave or lighting a forest on fire which they have discussed.

That is............incredibly shortsighted, The effects of random effects have way more impact then you're making it out to be, but we've been over it already in plenty of other weather threads, check out the threads Consili posted(particularly the first 2) to see why.

Mike

Rabbit says that the turtlers could do with being jolted out of their comfort zone a bit. its a theme ive noticed in several people and i find it seems to be very... uninformed.

Turtlers pay the price for that defense in lack of expansion leading to lack of resources making it, while still viable, generaly sub optimal. you want to compound these draw backs by punishing people who are already essentialy just playing for fun?