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Old March 31, 2000, 15:01   #1
Joe Bourque
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OUCH! Can't Planet take a joke?
Well, I had something rather suprising and interesting happen to me. I was playing on the standard map of planet on Thinker as the CC. Unfortunately, I hadn't built up terribly well, and was having some difficulties with the Diedre and Miriam. Not wanting to try and build up a huge military while I was doing other stuff, I noticed that I had Nerve Gas Pods in my unit workshop.

I'd never used them before, in any game, so I figured I might as well give them as go, as I was at war with everyone anyway. In very short order my X-Chaos Choppers were simply erasing base after Gaian base. Then I got a sea base in range of the Believers and their cities started to melt as well. Sure, everyone hated me, but I was cleaning up with very little effort.

Then the trouble started. Maybe I gassed some native life, that's the only thing I can think of... but a turn or two after destroying New Jersuelum, all my bases (even the tiny new ones) jumped to SEVENTY PLUS Eco-Damage. Every turn at each base my terraforming began to disapear beneath a tide of fungus and dozens of huge boils of mind-worms, spore launchers, and locusts began to assault my bases. To round it off, every turn or two the game would announce that the ocean levels would rise further and further.

I was not at all prepared for a massive assault on my peacefull homeland, and my bases started to crumble. I struggled to buy Presure Domes and specially manufacture cheap Trance defenders. By now most of my bases were up to 90 or 99 eco-damage and the real carnage was begining. In a little over a decade all my bases except one had been destroyed and just about every square on the map except for a few like the very top of Mount Planet was endagered by rising tides. The tech to launch solar shades hadn't arrived yet, so that was out.

Amusingly, when I was down to my last city, once on the shore of the Freshwater Sea, but now sitting in broad expanse of water, the Eco-Damage stopped. I think the hundreds (no kidding) of mind-worms all disappered the same turn. The oceans continued to rise though, until there was almost no land above water. I quickly built four or five bases on the fully terraformed remains of the Freshwater Sea, but to little avail. A custom faction of evil cultists I had designed that had built many sea bases and preasure domes declared itself Supreme Leader and I gave the game up for lost.

I was under the impression that this sort of environmental reaction only occured if you used LOTS of Planet Busters. After all, why would Planet care if I wiped out all those dirty poluting human cities? I don't think this was an error, but I suppose it could have been.

Does anyone else use gas regularly without this reaction occuring? I suppose if I had been prepared I could have survived. I would have needed maybe the Citizen's Defense, Preasure Domes, Neural Amplifier, and large numbers of Tranced AAA defenders. It would have had a serious effect on my empire (losing 90% of my terraforming) but I probably still could have gassed the badguys to death with boats or something.

It was actually sort of fun trying to fight off Planet. I think I may play a game on a huge map and purposfully do the same thing again, to see if I can resist it when prepared instead of utterly suprised and unready.

If you do enough atrocities of any kind does this reaction always come about? Surely if I just nerve-stapled (something I find nearly useless) and eradicated bases, Planet wouldn't care...

Anyway, any similar stories or stratigies to use gas without triggering a fungal appocalypse would be appreciated.

Joe
[This message has been edited by Joe Bourque (edited March 31, 2000).]
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Old March 31, 2000, 15:55   #2
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Joe: That's a well-confirmed feature. If you had not repealed the UN Charter, and you start using Nerve Gas and PBs, after a treshold level the Ecological Death SPiral starts kicking in.

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Old March 31, 2000, 16:11   #3
Joe Bourque
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ROFL! So, ah... if I repeal the U.N. Charter, Planet won't get pissed? I wasn't aware that it had signed...

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Old March 31, 2000, 16:34   #4
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Use Nerve Gas, and expect eco-damge, atrocity or not.

That's a feature of Patch 4 and later. Frankly, it turned my favorite unit into a unit I never build, except for rare, strategic reasons(like gassing a base to lower the population).
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Old March 31, 2000, 17:19   #5
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That's strange, because I use gas ALL the time, and I never seem to get a negative reaction. Maybe it is because I am running SMACX V2 (or technically 3), or maybe it is because I exclusively (well most of the time) use it on alien races.

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Old March 31, 2000, 17:21   #6
kaz
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I actually think you don't get the pollution if you gas Aliens, for some odd reason.
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Old April 1, 2000, 02:23   #7
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Yes - nerve gas works great on aliens. I guess Planet doesn't like them either.

As mentioned above, PBs and nerve gas will cause Planet to lose its temper. As well, mineral production - especially in high pop cities will have an impact. So will terrain improvements. The big ticket items: boreholes, echelon mirrors and condensers are the worst, but even minor terrain enhancements like mines and roads and such will have a small effect. I've seen the actual formula somewhere - probably the datalinks.

A SMACX v2 bug means that the two new terraforming missiles also seems to cause environmental damage. I think the program treats them like PBs. Yet another reason not to use them.
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Old April 1, 2000, 03:06   #8
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You can build up the planet's tolerance to damage, but I recommend doing so slowly ... a "controlled burn" so to speak.
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Old April 1, 2000, 05:45   #9
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Strange. I always thought that ecodamage from PBs and nerve-gas is nullified or lessened after Repealing the UN Charter... To that account, I had a game several months ago on Thinker in which I blasted Morgan and Lal away with a couple of Quantum XXXXL Fire Crackers, and nothing happenend...

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Old April 1, 2000, 12:55   #10
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I had one game where (ironically) I was the "enlightened" Lal and I decided to see how much money and minerals I could save by nerve stapling every single base. This was on a 80% water map or so. It worked great for 20 years, and then I had 80 ecodamage in bases producing 2 minerals. Luckily I had just about destroyed every other faction and had plenty of bases, but even the tiniest atrocities like nerve stapling can cause major eco damage if used enough (I had 4000+ years of sanctions)

It is true that when you repeal charter no eco damage from atrocities? What a great deal.
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Old April 1, 2000, 17:47   #11
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Any atrocity affects ecodamage. If the UN charter is revoked, or during sunspots when the news of the atrocity doesn't spread, there is no effect. In singleplayer, I've never had the need to bother with gas or PB's, except for the fun of it.

In Multiplayer games, I've applied gas 100+ times, as well as used PBs, with no ecodamage, so kaz's patch 4 comment is incorrect - there is some other factor involved.

The ecodamage formula is complex, and frankly, it is complex beyond the intellectual wattage of Firaxis designers. Having more bases allows you to crank out higher total and per base minerals without ecodamage. A part of the formula which considers global issues considers the total number of green improvements - tree farms, hybrid forests, Cent. preserves, and ToP's. So having more of these total, allows you to get more minerals per each base without ecodamage. If you have enough bases and green facilities, you can commit atrocities with relatively little or no ecodamage. I've had games where I've used four fusion PB's and only had two tiles go to fungus, and one mature boil show up, with no permanent ecodamage. You can also get away with more if you have a green economy.
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Old April 2, 2000, 01:39   #12
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Enigma: I'm going to check that, when I'll have free time...

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Old April 2, 2000, 02:16   #13
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how long does it take for ecodamage to go back to normal levels after u gas more than 40 bases down to nothing? I was bored so I gased all the factions to death,heh
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Old April 4, 2000, 00:54   #14
Joe Bourque
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Ah! Thinking back, I realize that there had been sunspot activity right up until a few turns before Planet blew up on me. However, I never imagined that that would have had the slightest effect on how Planet viewed my use of Nerve Gas.

It does strike me as rather ludicrous that even things like nerve stapling can cause Planet to respond in the same way as massive ecological damage. Oh well, from now on when I want to be naughty I'll just have to get the UN Charter repealed so Planet won't care. Weird....

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Old April 7, 2000, 18:46   #15
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I too have seen tides and tides of fungus and 100's of mindworms distroy my territory, BUT, I had just started he game and had only met Aki, and had a pact with her. I was wondering what the hell ws going on, I mean, the fungus was distroying 3 improvements a turn.
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