[0.60] Beta 3, no patch, no opt-in.
A. Fun, fun, fun
A1. Black holes are black. They no longer twinkle through the fog. Grumble. (Yaay!)
A2. Sound effects. No problems yet. (As others have noted, some sounds are too long.)
B. Major mechanism revisions
B1. Approval is micro-free
- Approval is now completely independent of wealth! This actually eliminates micro: now there is nothing you can do in the wheel that affects approval.
- Approval is now entirely(?) determined by a new Food-like quantity called Goods & Services. Improvements, techs, and starbase modules give this.
- +8: civilization capital
- +4: colony capital
- +2 Entertainment Center => +4 Entertainment Network
- +1(!) per level of Approval improvements
- Paradise hex (Approval +3) is now studly: an Ent Center gives +2+3 = +5, which satisfies 5.0 bp. That lets you run at max Approval bonus tier for 20-30 turns of growth.
- Approval% seems to use the rule:
- if (pop < Goods&Services) then 100%;
- else it decays by some function.
- Approval bonus tier is now almost(?) a smooth function. I think it's pointless to tabulate it, because anyways you cannot micro your Goods & Services, so it will staircase sporadically as you complete buildables.
Some notes:
- Civ capital starts with 10 bp and 8 G&S, so on turn 2 your approval will drop below 100%.
- Gambit: On turn 1, have your colony ship land-and-depart your homeworld and take off an extra 2.5 bp. This fills your colony ship, and drops your homeworld to 7.5 bp < 8 G&S, which gives you 100% approval for a few turns.
- Colony from half-full colony ship will start with 2.5 bp and 4 G&S, so it will be at 100% Approval for ~10 turns.
B2. Population-to-raw production decays
- At very high pop, the exchange rate of pop to raw production is much less than 1.0.
- Conversely, low-pop planets seem to get a bonus, with 1.0 bp =?= 1.33 raw. (Earth with +50% Production from max Approval was getting ~2.0 raw per 1.0 bp.)
C. Things that Make Me Micro:
C1. Queues are still lossy. Excess social production and research does not carry over.
D. XML Placeholders
D1. Terran improvement bonuses still seem overpowered, e.g. Basic Factory +25% Manuf is as good as everybody's Solar Power Plant. I haven't looked at Drengin, but they used to suck in comparison. I assume all XML numbers will get some global re-balancing later ... so I'll just abuse it for now 