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Apparently in DA and TA you can't move your homeworld to another colony like you can in DL, or am I missing something?


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on Nov 27, 2010

I've only played TA. I have not seen anything which would allow me to move my homeworld. How was it done in DL?

on Nov 28, 2010

I think you might get to if your homeworld gets conquered.

on Nov 28, 2010

SirPleb
I've only played TA. I have not seen anything which would allow me to move my homeworld. How was it done in DL?
When viewing a planets Colony Management screen clicking on the "Details" button takes you to the Planet Details screen. At the bottom right of the Planet Details screen there are 4 buttons above the "Done" button which are: the Governor button, the Set as Homeworld button, the Rename Planet button and the Destroy Colony button. All three versions of the game have these same 4 buttons however in DA and TA the Set as Homeworld button is greyed out on *all* planets. In DL the Set as Homeworld button is greyed out only on your current Homeworld and is an available selection on any other planet and if pressed sets the planet as your homeworld which essentially changes the Initial Colony building into a Civilization Capital and changes the Civilization Capital building on your previous homeworld into an Initial Colony building.

One reason you might want to do this is if you have a planet with a substanstial Research bonus due to a favorable colonization event. In this case it's reasonable to use such a planet as a Research Capital and it would also be a benefit to make that planet your Civilization Capital with it's 24 tp of research instead of just another colony with only the 10 tp of of research of an Initial Colony building.

Quaternus
I think you might get to if your homeworld gets conquered.
I suspect this may be the case although that definitely limits it's usefulness.

on Nov 28, 2010

Mumblefratz
When viewing a planets Colony Management screen clicking on the "Details" button takes you to the Planet Details screen. At the bottom right of the Planet Details screen there are 4 buttons above the "Done" button which are: the Governor button, the Set as Homeworld button, the Rename Planet button and the Destroy Colony button. All three versions of the game have these same 4 buttons however in DA and TA the Set as Homeworld button is greyed out on *all* planets. In DL the Set as Homeworld button is greyed out only on your current Homeworld and is an available selection on any other planet and if pressed sets the planet as your homeworld which essentially changes the Initial Colony building into a Civilization Capital and changes the Civilization Capital building on your previous homeworld into an Initial Colony building.

Thanks, got it. I have a ToA 2.03 game in progress, in the milking stage. Hoping that there might be some condition such as a minimum PQ or population I went through a couple of hundred planets in the Details screen. "Set as Homeworld" is greyed out on all of them. I went to my homeworld, destroyed the colony on it, then checked again on a few planets. Nope, still can't "Set as Homeworld".

Mumblefratz
One reason you might want to do this is if you have a planet with a substanstial Research bonus due to a favorable colonization event. In this case it's reasonable to use such a planet as a Research Capital and it would also be a benefit to make that planet your Civilization Capital with it's 24 tp of research instead of just another colony with only the 10 tp of of research of an Initial Colony building.

Good tip though it looks like it can only be used in DA and DL due to this bug.

on Nov 28, 2010

I went to my homeworld, destroyed the colony on it, then checked again on a few planets. Nope, still can't "Set as Homeworld".

So you can't move your homeworld even if your original homeworld is gone?

That's particularly bad, given that the default "new" homeworld is the low PQ planet in your starting system (such as Mars). Not a place you want that civilization capital...

on Nov 29, 2010

I don't think you get a new civ capital building.

on Nov 29, 2010

It was too easy to exploit. The ability to move your capital was removed in DA, but the UI bits related to doing so were not. Perhaps you could make note of this in the topic about things to tweak for the eventual patch.

on Nov 29, 2010

WIllythemailboy
It was too easy to exploit. The ability to move your capital was removed in DA, but the UI bits related to doing so were not. Perhaps you could make note of this in the topic about things to tweak for the eventual patch.
As far as exploits go this is about as minor as you can get.

I'd be far more interested in fixing DA so that you couldn't buy buildings, upgrade ships and still get positive social or military production out of research focus all while deep in bankruptcy. I'm pretty sure some of these things still exist in TA as well although a few of them may have already been fixed.

Compared to this what's the big whoop about moving your Civ Cap to a recently colonized or captured planet that for one reason or other was slightly more advantageous?

The problem with the game is the there are great gaping holes of problems and it's the tiny inconsequential problems that get fixed. To me the biggest issue with DA is the major speed nerfage that accomplished nothing in regard to it's intended purpose and instead resulted in merely being a major player annoyance. At least that's my opinion.

on Nov 29, 2010

This might cause problems for me as I have modded my civilization capitals to get an upgrade based on alignment after Xeno Ethics is researched. I also have one custom race that gets to upgrade its planetary capitals.

on Nov 30, 2010

The problem with the game is the there are great gaping holes of problems and it's the tiny inconsequential problems that get fixed. To me the biggest issue with DA is the major speed nerfage that accomplished nothing in regard to it's intended purpose and instead resulted in merely being a major player annoyance. At least that's my opinion.

The speed nerfage is really a subjective thing. Some hate it, some are neutral on it, some actually like it. Although I agree it didn't do much good at its intended purpose. Really hurt the AI more then the player.

on Nov 30, 2010

The speed nerfage is really a subjective thing. Some hate it, some are neutral on it, some actually like it. Although I agree it didn't do much good at its intended purpose. Really hurt the AI more then the player.
Actually it's intended purpose was to try and stop player "blitzkrieg" tactics against the AI. At the time it was Brad's concern that a player could be significantly behind an AI in weapons and defense technology yet simply by having fleets of very fast ships could totally bypass an AI's more powerful fleets and instead simply take out an AI's planets totally annihilating the AI in a few or perhaps even a single turn.

While there certainly were folks that used this type of tactic it was by no means universal and even more so there are many ways to accomplish the equivalent even with the speed nerfage.

Basically it all pretty much stems from Brad's stated belief that no one should be able to beat a suicidal AI without employing some form of exploit but in any case as previously stated the speed nerfage didn't satisfy the intended purpose on oh so many levels.

I could possibly believe that there are those that are neutral on the speed nerfage however I highly doubt that there are many that actually *prefer* it and even if there are a few they certainly aren't people that play gigantic galaxy games and in all likelihood are people that have moved onto TA anyway so why should they care about DA?

Still all I am stating is that the speed nerfage is *to me* nothing more than a feature that is designed to intentionally annoy the player in a game that is otherwise one of the best games ever made and it would be very nice in my opinion to at least partially address this issue.

I'm not asking for equivalent functionality to that of DL however it would be nice to have a constructor with say a speed of 15 which would be sufficient to cross a gigantic galaxy in only 18 turns to cost less than a BHE Dreadnought without engines.

To alleviate this nerfage I'm essentially being forced to build "speed arrays" of military starbases each with a speed bonus of 32 and scatter them all across the galaxy. Instead of bearing the cost of engines on my ships I instead don't put any engines on them at all and essentially make all of space faster.

In the end it doesn't stop anyone from doing whatever it is they want to do, it simply makes folks bend over backwards to get around it.

Like I said an intentional annoyance, no more, no less.

on Nov 30, 2010

Actually, I think the Homeworld difference between DL and DA/TA has come up before in threads since I've been here, perhaps even with Mumblefratz and myself noting the delta.  But, perhaps I mis-remember.

The AI empires have not seemed to get another capital colony building anytime I conquer that planet of theirs, even though a new planet visually changes to be the capital.  What happens to that building once I conquer or flip it.   That is, do I now have two such bonus structures?  Anyone know?  I cannot check myself until tonight.

Note, that if I now have two such buildings, even if only one is my official capital, that such would be another exploit.  That is, in a current game I am slowly conquering an AI right now (the Drath, who I always seem to end up fighting).  Each time I take their capital, a new one spawns (but it does not have the extra bonuses).  If it DID get those bonuses, than I could end up with many of those buildings.  If the building bonus does NOT respawn for an empire but does remain after being conquered, then a player could have as many of those buildings as there are empires to conquer.

That is, if one could move/redesignate the capital, then the respawn upon conquering would seem to naturally follow.  Thus, a careful conqueror would have that exploit available.

In fact, one could carefully work an enemy down to one planet (which would by default be a capital), gift them a planet, conquer the present capital, have the gifted planet become a capital, gift them another, conquer the first gifted planet which has become a capital, etc.  One could rinse and repeat until every planet one had was the capital bonus building!

I suspect that a conquered capital loses its bonuses.  I doubt they return even if the original owner re-acquires that planet, but i have not yet tested that.  Anyone know?

on Nov 30, 2010

The AI empires have not seemed to get another capital colony building anytime I conquer that planet of theirs, even though a new planet visually changes to be the capital. What happens to that building once I conquer or flip it. That is, do I now have two such bonus structures? Anyone know? I cannot check myself until tonight.
In DL what happened is that during the turn that you captured an AI's homeplanet the civilization capital building would definitely still be on the captured planet and the Civ Cap would also maintain the normal Civ Cap benefits, in particular the extra morale benefit of a civ cap versus an initial colony building along with the increased production and research capability and most importantly the increased food supply provided by a Civ Cap versus an initial colony building.

However the next time you hit end turn the AI would set a new homeworld and the planet you just captured would revert to a plain old colony and if you didn't take care to build new farms before pressing end turn you'd have the planet lose a whole bunch of pop due to the fact that the initial colony building does not support the same number of people.

You could continue to take the same AI's new homeworld and the same thing would happen until you finally totally eliminated that AI at which point the planet that was that AI's homeplanet during that last turn will in fact stay a Civ Cap with all the characteristics of a Civ Cap.

In DA I've only captured all of an AI's planets in a single turn so I don't know whether or not they can shift their homeworld to a new planet if their homeworld gets captured but they still have other planets, but I do know that you do in fact get thier homeworld with its civ cap and all the attributes of a civ cap when you capture all of an AI's planets.

Of course there was a single AI that I left with a single planet and it *looked* like it was a Civ Cap however I really wasn't paying attention whether or not their previous civ cap stayed a civ cap or reverted to a regular colony the turn after capture. The next time I get to this point in a game I'll make a note of it but that probably won't be for awhile.

on Nov 30, 2010

Mumblefratz
As far as exploits go this is about as minor as you can get.
I agree. If someone really thought it worth "fixing" a more appropriate fix would be to add a dialog box saying something like "moving your capital costs 250bc, are you sure?"

on Dec 03, 2010

Of course there was a single AI that I left with a single planet and it *looked* like it was a Civ Cap however I really wasn't paying attention whether or not their previous civ cap stayed a civ cap or reverted to a regular colony the turn after capture. The next time I get to this point in a game I'll make a note of it but that probably won't be for awhile.

Your impression didn't deceive you - this mechanism works *once* for each civ that is in the game, which means that - taken the food & moral bonus of the civ cap building into count - a player could scoop up an equivalent of ~20-30 extra tiles, and the extra RP.