zArkham, one of the things on the lengthy list of changes Protok St presently toiling on is reintegration of the standard trade console from the base game that was removed, albeit with a few restrictions since the AI is so laughably bad at accepting deals with human players. That should allow you to give cities to other players in peacetime.

I really like your suggestion for putting stations under your protection. I thought that at one time, the way to ward off AIs was to put a Station Sentinel satellite over the station in question. Unfortunately that's not the case. A more robust station interface and decision matrix would be appropriate. Perhaps it's even be possible to import the Civ V system? I know some mods borrow heavily from Civ V's scripting system since the game engine is basically the same as Civ V. But that's something that Protok St would have to answer.

As for vassal states and other options, I like that idea too. The notion that the AI will declare war out of fear when they have one city left and you have a dozen, is absurd. Having a pathway to peacefully coexist makes more sense. Though, I think a more modern name would be appropriate. Perhaps a Cosponsor? Perhaps a name dependent upon affinity? Many possibilities.

Well vassal states were nice in the sense they'd vote for you in a U.N. Another thing I like about vassals is if they got big enough, they'd break away. Of course there was an old Civ IV mod which worked on a system where cities would revolt if things were going badly.

I think this would work well in Civ: BE in the sense you have a metric to help show unrest: that being health AND affinity. Obviously if I conquer a city made up mostly of Harmony citizens and I'm a hard-core Purity faction, they aren't going to like it. Also, distance was a factor so if you had a core of cities on one continent, cities farther away might get ideas of independence. This system would also make the culture fight more important given you'd have to watch your citizens more carefully.

And yes, in my current game, I had Chungsu wipe out a station I just put a station guardian on! At least in Civ V they'd tell you they did it and you could be angry or Meh about it.

Oh, one last thing. In diplomacy, even Civ V lost the ability for the human to threaten the AI. there are times when I'd like to be able to do what the AI does; have a list of things I'm irritated about (usually building too close or attacking factions I like) and as you say, it's sad that I might have lots of cities and yet I can't lean on smaller civs doing what I don't like.

Also, I will say what I say to anyone doing a large mod; there needs to be a better system in regard to the aliens. The thing I miss most about Alpha Centauri is the more you killed aliens and terraformed the planet, the more the Planet Mind got aggressive. In Civ:BE, aliens are mostly just "Mario Coins" for XP and science depending on your virtues. There is little downside to just killing anything that moves. Which makes the Harmony path not as viable.

Also, Harmony players (or Hybrids) should have a way to destroy/move a nest when it's on a resource. That and it would be nice if there was a counter which showed you where you stood (even vaguely) versus the aliens. Again, it sucks that Harmony players often have to attack aliens to get resources and this penalizes them more.

In regard to the above. Plus it seems that it often only takes attacking one alien for them to go on the attack. You'd think there'd be a bit more give.

The idea of protection stations at no cost is intriguing
But to be fairly, I feel totally normal when if I want to protect anything, stations for example, I should move some soldiers close to this object for this purpose.

Another issue you might want to look into, or maybe it's just me, but for the longest time it seems the A.I. does two things. First, almost all factions trend towards creating water cities even when there is PLENTY of open land with PLENTY of resources. Worse is they make 3 cities and stop.

And yet, after changing very little, suddenly the A.I. is back to spamming cities without any hint of issues with health. I've got 3 cities and struggling with health. It's irritating that there seems to be a fine line of human difficulty level where you just get slammed and when you cruise to victory.

In relation to the above, I also feel the AI has a very bad tendency to want to build Water Cities. I think this is a bias brought in by the Rising Tide DLC. Not only will the AI forgo building land cities and claim resources inland, they waste a lot of time moving the cities around AND because they spam naval units so much, they rarely beef up their defenses so it's easier to take their cities later in the game. I've played games on a Pangea type map where the AI just mostly ignores it and just builds ocean cities along the coast.

引用自 zArkham4269：

The thing I miss most about Alpha Centauri is the more you killed aliens and terraformed the planet, the more the Planet Mind got aggressive. In Civ:BE, aliens are mostly just "Mario Coins" for XP and science depending on your virtues.

"Mario Coins" ...That made me laugh out loud. I think the Aliens are a huge problem at the start of the game as it is. Though, once you get to your third unit upgrades, they are mostly a mild annoyance. I like the fact that they don't attack unless you hit them first. Though, I think scalability of response is an interesting idea. Like they can go all Zerg on you if you keep torturing them. Though if terrain improvements were going to tick them off, that would require some rethinking of Harmony as you suggest.

Though I also like the idea that some planets have aliens that AREN'T all linked together in a hive mind (perhaps on one of the world types) or perhaps have several different factions themselves. So if you upset the aliens on one continent or ocean, the ones in another part of the world don't also hate you by default.

引用自 Protok St：

The idea of protection stations at no cost is intriguing :AmericanReclamationCorporation:
But to be fairly, I feel totally normal when if I want to protect anything, stations for example, I should move some soldiers close to this object for this purpose.

I think he's referring to it in the sense of interactions and notifications more like the City-States in Civilization V, for which Stations are supposed to be an analog. The developers definitely missed an opportunity not porting the entire city-state code over to this game and tweaking it to work for the station format. Especially since quests are such a significant part of Beyond Earth.

Another thing I was thinking it would be nice to have (maybe not for all planets) is Civ: Be only has forests. There should be an option for jungle. Hot, wet, steamy Jungle planets are a staple of Sci-Fi going back to the beginning. Too often, I pick a Hot, Wet bias and mostly get desert because the game doesn't have jungle which is what I'm going for.

Plus, a small aside, one thing I miss from Civ IV is there were different forests. Depending on the terrain, you'd get different images of forest. So forests on tundra would get snow-capped pine trees while on plains or grasslands, you'd get regular deciduous trees.

Also, in going with my comments about SMAC, I think the game really needs a counter where the more you make improvements, cut down forests and the like, the aliens will get more aggressive. That's sort of the point of building hybrid forests; you get a better tile but you don't piss off the aliens.

Likewise, another reason I'm for a Affinity as Yields type system is the base game makes most factions look too similar. Yet if you get yields mostly by builds, then your decisions have bigger consequences. If going with the above idea of the "Planet Counter" certain quests can have bigger impacts. Like the one where your choice is protecting native fish or introducing Earth fish. Obviously doing on will rise your planet count (negatively that is) while the other would keep it steady or maybe drop it a bit.

Another factor could be that certain things like ultrasonic fences and the like would be ignored by aliens if your counter is too negative. Also, like in SMAC, having alien nests re-spawn (even in territory you control) is another way to make just wasting aliens left and right something where you are going to pay a cost. As I said initially, right now there is little downside to not killing aliens. Sure you lose out in the explorer game but your units gain experience. I can't say how often the AI chides me for not having trained units because I avoid war and don't attack aliens if I can avoid it because I like winning the artifact game.

I'm actually surprised (given how I think Civ IV and V animations work in CIV:BE) that no one has made a mod (that I've found) that changes the siege worms to sand-worms given there are plenty of Dune mods for Civ IV out there. (Dune Wars being a favorite of mine)

In regard to the new mni-map, I didn't see much of the point of some of the add-ons, but the base-limit line feature is really nice! Especially, unlike the AI, I like to spread my cities out and this makes doing that easier.

Maybe I'm just remembering Civ IV too much but I like to ensure there is little in the way of 'wasted' space between cities because the AI sometimes will try and put a city like right in the middle of yours sometime.

Which actually brings up another point about wanting a return to the original BE diplomacy. Hate how the AI can get all angry at me building a city (often VERY MUCH in my territory) yet I can't do the same other than the blanket (don't build near me) which the AI pretty much always blows off. Really needs a better way to denounce a faction when they do something you don't like as you can in Civ V.

Also, regardless of this "just being a game" I find it odd that regardless of the difficulty level that you start with NO military units. At the very least, there should be an infantry with you.

Or, if possible, create a system where you can call up "the reserves" where you temporarily lose a population to get a weaker version of a infantry unit. A lot of times in the early game, I just need a unit to protect a worker. Having the option to risk a worker or having slower production while I have a population doing protection rather than production still seems to me to be a good way to play.

That and it would make cities a bit harder to take as you could (if it could be done) draft citizens to help defend. I know I've seen Civ IV and V mods in the past which allow this so I know it is possible in theory.

Just a thought as I'm playing on the Water World test map. I remember that in the fantasy mod for Civ IV (Fall From Heaven II I think it was called) they had a sort of 'evil' water terrain.

For BE, though, I was thinking of some form of 'miasmic kelp' in the sense that the kelp would slow units down, would be tiles aquatic alien units could heal in and you'd have to clear the kelp before improving the tile. Also, unlike the other aquatic alien lifeforms, it wouldn't give the AI something to just blow up to get 'free' XP for their units.

Oh and Trade Units would have to go around it and couldn't go through it till some higher Harmony tech or perhaps the same tech that unlocks mag-rails.

Now that last part is mostly just a hindrance but maybe a certain amount of such tiles cleared would act like killing alien units as well as have an affect on the new Ecology metric you've been working on.