Ljosalfar IN SPACE!: Bobchillingworth hugs a fungus

[Bobchillingworth]

Two more pods today:





Not bad at all. I don't foresee the energy resource getting used any time soon, but the pile of credits is certainly worthwhile.






Holy hell, that's the best result I could have gotten!




Okay, so question for Maniac or whoever. None of my cities can train Native Life at the moment, despite my now having the tech. Is this because I lack any units with the +25% psi defense & better pod results promotion (I don't have archaeology yet)? Also what increases my Native Life unit cap, number of cities or Planet rating or what? I should know this by now, but it has never really been an issue before in SP.

[Sareln]

Okay, so question for Maniac or whoever. None of my cities can train Native Life at the moment, despite my now having the tech. Is this because I lack any units with the +25% psi defense & better pod results promotion (I don't have archaeology yet)? Also what increases my Native Life unit cap, number of cities or Planet rating or what? I should know this by now, but it has never really been an issue before in SP.

Mouse over the Planet Heart and it will give you a breakdown of your Psi Potential. It may be that you've filled all your psi slots with Isles.

Psi Potential divided by some constant based on map and game speed rounded down gives you the number of native life units you can control.

Psi Potential is the sum of all your bases planet ratings and accumulates each turn. So if you have 4 bases with +2 planet rating each, then you add 8 to your Psi Potential per turn. And yes, it can backslide with enough negative rating.

[Bobchillingworth]

Hmm, okay. But I'm not even seeing the option to build the units- they aren't appearing at all. Does this relate in any way to my not having any hypnotic trance units?

[Maniac]

If you can't build them due to Psi Potential, they won't appear on the build menu. Same with spies and missionaries if you reached the limit.

[Bobchillingworth]

More Pods, middling results:








Not pictured: Another pod I opened last turn, which only gave a dumb energy bonus resource.


I can open up to four new pods next turn, depending on how combat goes, but I'll probably settle for three since some of my units need to heal.


I'm finding large numbers of spawning spots across the map now. Normally in a SP game, there'd be AI busting them up, but here I appear to be the only player sailing the seas, and I have no interest in removing the Native Life which supplies me with troops and unwittingly protects my borders.



Here's the current state of my island:





Demographics:





Demographics look better than they really are. My land area and GNP are mostly culture. My large solider lead is almost all from my nine Isles of the Deep, which are good units but right now not really a threat to anybody else. I'm probably competing more for second place right now than first.

[Maniac]

Why are you researching Pressure Dome? Going for sea CPs? Or the Ascetic Virtues?

[Bobchillingworth]

Yeah, sea colonies mostly. My island can only support three more decent city sites (and maybe two other filler towns), and I want to start claiming some of the rich water areas off my coast.


Being able to build Marines will also be a boon. They aren't as good as Genities, but they still should be okay for now as city defenders to back Bunkers. Sadly I cannot rely on Mindworms for defense, as I want a large navy & captured Isles will constitute the vast bulk of it for a long time.


The Virtues is an unwanted side effect. -1 happy wherever the dumb thing lands.




I can guarantee my next great person will be a Transcend, so they'll bulb my next Plant tech, while I devote manual research to furthering my naval superiority.

[spellman]

Being able to build Marines will also be a boon. They aren't as good as Genities, but they still should be okay for now as city defenders to back Bunkers. Sadly I cannot rely on Mindworms for defense, as I want a large navy & captured Isles will constitute the vast bulk of it for a long time.

Ever try removing Marines from coastal cities? Their bonuses add up.

[Bobchillingworth]

One other thing I forgot about the tech are the eponymous Pressure Domes themselves- my happy cap right now is pretty high, and I can easily raise it further by planting forests. Being able to run extra Empaths or whatever in some of my cities will be a real boon.

[Bobchillingworth]

Well, this ended up being pretty lame. One of my pod attempts failed when my Isle lost at 79% odds, and the other three gave meh results:










I can only manage to open one next turn. Several of my units badly need pause to heal.