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[Urist McScoopbeard]

I believe it has to do with the atmospheric farming suitability in world gen, you won't be able to grow food outside if its toxic.

ALSO, can someone verify or refute this: open air farms next to water sources use that water instead of what you mine?

[Il Palazzo]

I believe it has to do with the atmospheric farming suitability in world gen, you won't be able to grow food outside if its toxic.

Would that it were so simple.

[Culise]

I've been primarily settling inimical worlds where any sort of exposed biosphere is impossible for a host of reasons (inimical atmosphere, cold/hot temperatures, etc), so I'm consulting the manual here:

Page 114: 4.3.11 Production modifiers. Temperature and rainfall of the tile are seasonal and will affect open-air farming: cold/hot and arid tiles cannot be farmed regardless of average planetary characteristics.  Atmospheric conditions and biohazards also play a role, but these are not elaborated on here.

Page 152-153: 5.2.1 Planet Stats  These break down as follows:

• Biological Hazard Level (BHL): Caused by dangerous or inimical alien life.  Seems to be general to all Terran organisms from plants to humans based on the description, but it does not state a direct impact on agriculture even at BHL 4.
• Terrestrial Atmospheric Agricultural Toxicity Level (TAATL): Caused by toxic gasses (list unspecified, but I have seen oxygen partial pressure levels that should be toxic to humans not being counted against human hazard levels, so I imagine similar caveats apply here for agriculture).  Anything above 0 will reduce growth.  A level 4 (Incompatible) will kill Terran plants outright.
• Alien Nutritional Toxicity Level (ANTL): Caused by alien life. A rating of 0 (Excellent) will allow you to consume alien life.  Higher ratings will reduce nutritional value of alien life.   The manual indicates that level 4 here (Toxic or Incompatible) will also kill Terran plants outright, but this may be either an error (see BHL) or pre-release information, because...

Page 196: 5.5.2 Open Farming Rules.  This is basically all of the above in a single place, with separate modifiers for Terran and Xeno crops.  BHL 4 or TAATL 4 will eliminate open-air harvests, which matches the descriptions from above.  Terran crops cannot be grown below 0C or above 60C, and will have reduced yields below 10C or above 35C.  Interestingly, this does not include ANTL in its tables for Terran crops, which is rather logical.  I'm inclined to take this as the primary source, however, pending any observations to the contrary.

You can also verify your planet's overall agricultural potential once you've finished generating your world and have started your game.  Open REPorts, select Help, and check the Planetary Statistics Overview that appears as the first window: the very last entry is the recommended farming method for this planet overall.  This won't include tile-specific conditions like rain or temperature and it is a trifle late for actually generating a world to spec, but it can be nice to verify.  Also, as indicated earlier in the thread, the colonization phase of planet generation includes atmospheric terraforming.  If your world isn't completely inimical to Terran plant life, initial colonization will typically see the establishment of Terran plants and an increase in atmospheric free oxygen, which builds on itself over a long colonization phase to reduce the TAATL hazard rating as low as 0.  This obviously won't help with BHL, but it does make verifying your atmosphere in the Colonization phase (either in that phase itself or on the final screen before confirming your planet) worthwhile.

Water collection is also in this section (5.5.3), so I'll add it in as well:
Manual indicates that farms will use Rain*2 for the current round directly, where Rain is the average rainfall in mm/year.  All remaining requirements are taken from Zone Inventory.  However, if the zone touches any source of water, it will also harvest part of that water for free: 500-3000 for a single river bonus based on size of the largest river, plus additional bonuses for (presumed-saline) seas (2000), (presumed-freshwater) lakes (5000), and rainfall (Rain*4).  Anything further requires explicit collection and/or purification equipment.  I assume seas and lakes are different types of water tiles: for obvious reasons, they don't appear as often as open tiles on Boreas, Seth, or Cerberus class worlds.

[Vivalas]

Jeez, well, I under estimated the guy to my north.

Just fought through (and lost) my first major campaign and playthrough, and I have to say I'm really impressed by both the strategic AI and the feel of war in this game.

Turns out he was a juggernaut who, despite also being at war with the other major I bordered, was able to send a pretty sizeable infantry force at me. I was able to hold off his main force on my border, and sent a mechanized unit and a whole mg infantry brigade through a mountain pass to open another front, and then watched as the other guy slowly pushed his front in.

Granted I played waayyy too offensively for the amount I was out-gunned and out-teched, and when he brought in a whole light armor brigade against me my damaged and overextended lines melted against the onslaught. I was playing too way too fast and wasn't really stopping to think, and despite already having AT I didn't realize until too late in the war (when I brought everyone back to the capital and turtled and entrenched) that the formations with the AT were on the other pages of the raise formo dialogue. Even still I held out pretty damn good, and it turned into a nasty war of attrition as I started fighting him in every defensible spot I could. My casualties soared from a steady 1k (from my earlier war with the nomads and a few skirmishes with marauders) into the 70k range, and soon I was burning all my PP on "All for the front!" cards to convince my populace not to revolt from the absolutely staggering casualties. That and managing the logistic situation and shuffling lorries around to move troops to the front, really feels almost like a sort of Great War sim once you get into total war and mobilize your entire economy, and I was loving it, even after having my ass handed to me by the AI who kept breaking through my weaker lines and encircling me.

There's something great about cranking up recruitment to max, and playing recruitment push cards to just spam out brigade after brigade of infantry to hold back the armored onslaught of the techogermans who were invading me. I played pretty sloppy, but even still I can tell I put a huge hurt on his economy and the attrition was dragging him out too thin to hold off the other major who was slowly advancing through his territory. This, at least, does seem almost flawed from a strategic standpoint. He lost a ton of ground to his other enemy just to destroy me, which I suppose somewhat makes sense, but if I had played better and actually realized I could build anti-tank and instead of trying to attack, just held the line and fortified like crazy, I definitely could have held him off long enough that the other guy would have started taking his cities (although, at that point, I would still be screwed because the other guy also hated me and now would be twice as powerful as me). Definitely gonna go back to that save once I have more time in the game and experience with large wars, since I loved the atmosphere of that game and the culture I had built in my regime. Starting a new playthrough now, because I understand the game a lot more now. Oh, yeah, that's the other thing. I don't know if there's actually a losing screen, because the game crashed after he captured my capital, but I assume the rest is obvious.


The other thing I noticed is that starting new zones can grow your economy extremely fast, because of the influx of migration it causes that lowers your pop in other cities and attracts more free folk. That and it seems to also gather free folk at the same speed other zones do. Abusing this probably wouldn't end well, but it was noticable that the small zone I had anticpated to found over a cluster of ruins to scavenge, quickly soared in population from mass migration because of the high worker salaries I have and the number of empty worker jobs there. I would definitely say be careful with worker salaries in new zones, especially if they're higher than normal private income, because the zone grew way faster than I could provide food for it and eventually became a constantly unrest-ridden slum that I just couldn't manage to bring back to normal, what with everything else that was going on. But this kind of behavior is also pretty cool in a game.

I would say the game really does feel almost like a planet-based Distant Worlds, what with how the private economy works, since they trade with you, and your traders, which trade with other empires. The in game commodity market doesn't make resources from thin air, anything you buy with credits is imported from other nations with a surplus, and anything you export goes to other nations with a defecit, and if you try to sell too much eventually the market just gets clogged with very low price resources that nobody needs and they stop buying from you. Very neat.

To those daunted by the manual, I would say just to jump in. I skimmed the manual, read the quickstart, and followed the in-game advice prompts and mostly did alright. Granted I love these sorts of games and can pick up games quickly, but I think experience is the best way to get a feel for the systems. I just kinda referred back to it when I had a question about a mechanic I couldn't figure out.

[ChairmanPoo]

Jesus, is this obscure. Kinda reminds me of Iron Seed, what with all that trying to figure out what means what and what works how.

same feeling. I really want to get into it and yet at the same time with all the stress I have in my life I can´t really afford to get into crazy micromanagement

[Dostoevsky]

Yeah, worker salaries is something I need to get a better sense of managing. I initially focused on building my capital city really tall, only to realize that paying the massive public workforce was slamming my pocketbook. Starting focusing more on the other zones, which I still keep at a lower worker salary level. Not sure if it's cheaper on the whole though, given that I have to negotiate with / pay off the occasional near-protest in those zones. (Going Democracy this time so no violent quelling, even though I somehow still haven't unlocked even the very first Democracy profile even at 27% per turn.)

Spoiler: Also, on populace levels (click to show/hide)

One of the archaeology dig finds is a cloning facility that spits out 1000 people a turn for nearly zero upkeep (just 100 workers, not even any energy) and no cost to install. I've found several in my current game and haven't encountered any side effects yet. Also found some other really powerful facilities from the ruins, so it's not all crummy wasps and the like.

[Vivalas]

Ah, that reminds me of another flaw I think the game has, is how I think there should be more ways to influence or bolster the private economy.

For instance, my capital zone was booming. Middle civ level, high QOL, 100 happiness. My other zones... were barbaric. Emergency food to sustain the population, no private industry, very little private income to allow the private industies to grow.. etc.

I think there needs to be a sort of "investor" mechanic or such where private economy can move from richer zones to poorer zones. I don't know where I would suggest this to, but it's something I feel the game very strongly needs. It would make sense for the private economy of my capital to invest in the massive empty markets of my newer and empty zones with no QOL buildings or really anything at all, but it was really up to me to build all of that stuff. The micro in this game is pretty chill... until you try to build a new zone, since it takes so long for the private economy there to grow. That and the ability to sell state assets to the private economy, to get credits but also to bolster the private economy and denationalize things, for instance, if you had to during a war to support the war effort.

[Dostoevsky]

Being able to privatize just like you can nationalize would be an interesting option. And yeah, I agree that different zones' economies should be able to interact more than they do - while more alive than most 4x games, they do still feel kind of in service to / dependent on the nation to share between zones. (Insert political commentary here, har har.) At least people migrate over pretty quick and (after the initial tech hump) there are public QOL buildings to make. If you're having trouble getting migrants over, you can always hire up some colonists and plop them into the new zone.

You can (through speaking to the zone governor about options) use your own credits to stimulate the private economy, at least. And there are some pretty potent stratagems on the private asset side - in addition to the 'this private asset is now built' cards, there are ones that just pump up to a couple thousand credits into the zone's private economy (this does not cost you money, just PP).

When I take a new zone I usually give it a per-turn stimulus for a while, at least if I can afford it.

[Majestic7]

There is an investment option in the form of private economy and investor cards. You get them more with high commerce and if you have a good relationship with a megacorporation, I think. Of course, that is different from private money flowing between zones. It would be interesting if your private money could start buying chunks out of other factions as well. Economic victory option?

[Vivalas]

Being able to privatize just like you can nationalize would be an interesting option. And yeah, I agree that different zones' economies should be able to interact more than they do - while more alive than most 4x games, they do still feel kind of in service to / dependent on the nation to share between zones. (Insert political commentary here, har har.) At least people migrate over pretty quick and (after the initial tech hump) there are public QOL buildings to make. If you're having trouble getting migrants over, you can always hire up some colonists and plop them into the new zone.

You can (through speaking to the zone governor about options) use your own credits to stimulate the private economy, at least. And there are some pretty potent stratagems on the private asset side - in addition to the 'this private asset is now built' cards, there are ones that just pump up to a couple thousand credits into the zone's private economy (this does not cost you money, just PP).

When I take a new zone I usually give it a per-turn stimulus for a while, at least if I can afford it.

I've never gotten those cards, but I did do the investing, it's more just that I wish the wealthy entrepreneurs in my capital would go to the wild frontier, where they can presumably.. make even more money.

[Karlito]

Ah, that reminds me of another flaw I think the game has, is how I think there should be more ways to influence or bolster the private economy.

Call the governor. There's a slider called "public budget" which takes money out of your pile and dumps it straight into the zone economy.

ALSO, can someone verify or refute this: open air farms next to water sources use that water instead of what you mine?

Zones will produce water outside of mining if they have rivers, lakes, oceans, or rain water to harvest.

[Il Palazzo]

Here's another question that the manual didn't bother to provide an answer to: with ease of mining, is low level harder or easier than high level?

[Shooer]

I love the planet generator and the scenarios you can get.
Large Siwa, goal is a high pop world.  Cool temperature and old age.
Geology leaves no water and nearly no rainfall in the north hemisphere.  It's a barren waste. 
The south ends up being a flat plains of rough shrubbery (no trees evolve after 4600 years) cut by a few small mountain ranges.
The south plains are also stalked by 14m Bitetrapods. 

New plan: Jurassic world survivors.  If we end up in the dead north we will have time to prep for the coming monsters, in the south I hope the food is worth being hunted.

Colonization ended at a population of only 5.2 mil.  Only lost 3.4 mil in the collapse, over 80% of the survivors are hunters.  1% farmers.

Final cherry on top: nuclear war, so much nuclear war.  Of all the worlds I've played they never suffered full civil war.  Let alone one that lead to nuclear missile exchanges. 

So now more than half of the green belt and dead belt is irradiated.


Nuclear Jurassic Park World

[Knave]

Here's another question that the manual didn't bother to provide an answer to: with ease of mining, is low level harder or easier than high level?

I believe the lower levels are harder to reach as I've seen my asst levels fall over time.

Nuclear Jurassic Park World

That sounds really dope, but I would hate to face off against those in combat! My first planet had 11m tall tyrannid things and they would just eat up nothing short of an army 

[Majestic7]

I wish there were different presets for the world conflict, so it could be more man vs nature than factions versus factions, if you lived on a planet of monsters. That would make an interesting co-op between human players.  If we get naval stuff, just imagine playing on a water world with huge Lovecraftian sea monsters that can eat entire installations.

I'd like to see more victory options too, such as building a quantum transreceiver thingy to summon the Shadow on the planet or building a warp ship to recontact the rest of the galaxy. Then other players could nuke your building site before you are finished, just because they are dicks like that.