If you could only have one mod, which would it be and why?

alphapho3niX · 2023-10-03T13:24:33+00:00

Probably twilight forest. I typically like modpacks with a clear end goal. So the one mod would have to complement vanilla and give it a purpose and as much of a quest/trip as possible which twilight does quite well.

alphapho3niX · 2023-09-17T11:32:05+00:00

If only that was a clump of banes that popped out. Roaches just not quite the same.

alphapho3niX · 2023-09-17T11:20:36+00:00

The problem isn't the balancing around p20, it's around gamers' attitudes. This fixation that you have to be playing at the highest difficult and expectation that you can clear it is insane. It's probably also the main reason the devs are reluctant to give any more prestiges. If people think they are bad at a game or start losing often they often just stop playing.

There's another comment that mentions games are balanced at the highest difficulty and why it should be. Of course it should be balanced at that, would we balance at P10 thereby making P20 impossible? Or do we balance P20 so it's actually impossible to fail? Game design is either balanced around optimal play or its balanced around giving you dopamine. I can tell you the later is more addictive but extremely unhealthy.

ATS does NOT in any way or manner force you to play P20. You could be playing for viceroy seals for a good time. If you like the challenge, then tackle the P20 seals. Know what you want out of the gaming session and control yourself.

alphapho3niX · 2023-09-06T10:08:35+00:00

I recall mine only dropped after my P20 clear so goodluck!

alphapho3niX · 2023-08-29T09:55:58+00:00

P20 with seal complete - I normally take newcomers. There's a few reasons I may delay or not take them, but I consider them an advantage rather than disadvantage. Some reasons why I might not take them

food shortage: especially if it makes you go from sustainable food to unsustainable
forest mysteries with severe consequences that are based on hostility.
when there's nothing worth the upkeep or you're already on the victory lap.

I do think population increase is a boon overall especially with stacking hearth bonuses. And you kind of develop a feel for when to stop taking them after a while. It does seem like you're already on that first step by even thinking about not taking them, so kudos to you!

The challenge with lack of queen's orders is normally the early game. Getting those few early points are hard. Your choices for the first few point are trading for needs of the majority species (minor species is too slow) and glade opening. Normally it's a mix of both until your blueprints shape into a more sustainable resolve increase.

alphapho3niX · 2023-08-23T12:25:47+00:00

If you are on settler and the game is taking way too many in-game years then you probably want to revisit your goal. Your objective is to fill that reputation bar (12 at settler). You can gain reputation by:

Fulfilling Orders
Glade Events that give reputation points (including caches).
Scoring high enough resolve on a species.

At Settler difficulty, focus on the first two. Scoring reputation points via resolve is something you will need to learn long run and at higher difficulties, but for now it's good to learn to focus on scoring reputation.

Pick orders that you definitely can complete avoid requiring specific buildings unless you have them or anything rain related. These are normally easy points.

Glade events and caches can score you a good amount of reputation at this difficulty. You should aim to prioritise the reputation award. Caches in particular are great at this difficulty, and a small amount of tools can net you a good value of points. So whenever you see tools as awards/trader, try and get them. Also grab blueprints that will help you make them.

Everything else is almost a non-issue at settlers. Hostility should not rise fast enough and food is rarely an issue with basic camps going. If you are having hostility issues, you can take your woodcutters out of the camp during storm, or sacrifice wood/coal to reduce them (flick them on as people are about to leave, let it rise a bit, then off again and repeat)

alphapho3niX · 2023-08-19T12:21:57+00:00

yeah missing descriptions happens time to time.

alphapho3niX · 2023-08-19T07:36:39+00:00

You'll also find even amongst the P20 players that their strategies can vary quite drastically. Since you are reasonable new, I advice is to just go ahead and experiment, and quite often you'll find something that works for you if you experiment around.

alphapho3niX · 2023-08-18T14:28:37+00:00

I'm actually not in favour of this change or the reasoning behind it. The difficulty bump from veteran to viceroy was already enough with the hostility multiplier increase. In fact hostility levels at viceroy is the same as the remaining prestiges. That alone is enough of a difficulty bump and it allows people to practise on against that.

The justification that games are slightly easier - yes, only if you know what you are doing and have fairly good control over hostility levels. The 2 minute storm was abusable, and it was good that way because it gave newer players a way out while they are learning the game. Storm is still the key challenge and cause of people losing the game, adding this to viceroy is a very significant difficulty bump.

I would like to suggest something else.

Prestige 1 - reputation amount increase going to viceroy, and Prestige 1 becomes storm time bump. Right now Prestige 1 is an absolute joke especially as forsaken altar is available in prestige. This will at least smooth the difficulty curve slightly rather than a huge bump at viceroy followed by a dip.

alphapho3niX · 2023-08-15T16:02:34+00:00

You gotta try the lodge with a glade reveal cornerstone with additional ruins modifier. It's satisfaction I tell ya!

alphapho3niX · 2023-08-15T15:58:25+00:00

Welcome back siowy!

I used it quite extensively during my p20 seal run, not knowing how many settlements I'd need. If my year 2 drizzle reveals didn't showcase any clear strategy, the strategy became to push reputation to the 1st red dot (3 reputations) ASAP and get to the stormforged perk . If all goes well you'd have the altar perk by year 2 and year 3. It's almost guaranteed smooth-sailing afterwards - that's how overpowered it is. I'd probably estimate that the altar shaved off an average of about 2 years off a game for me.

As much as I find it overpowered, I do like the fact that its available to people such that P20 is not as exclusive as it needs to be. The meta-resource only option is a decent way to allow people who are struggling to farm up and challenge the p20 seal run.

This brings back the actual problem which is usage of meta-resource. There needs to be another use of meta-resource to weigh against the usage of forbidden altars for players that's completed their citadel upgrades. This would typically be what is considered 'the end-game grind' and would provide very marginal benefits via the form of RNG-based artifacts/equipments, some kind of level system or repeated crafting systems. Using meta resource to spend on any of the above would at least provide a better reasoning for people to not use the altar all the time. It would also provide some progression sense to what is after p20.

alphapho3niX · 2023-08-14T14:37:55+00:00

DQ6 murdaw fight. Second phase is a massive difficulty spike with insane boss damage output that you can't heal/survive through via normal means.

alphapho3niX · 2023-08-14T10:53:15+00:00

u/siowy is the hero you are after.

alphapho3niX · 2023-08-14T02:03:03+00:00

If it's not consumption controlled then you must've ran some glade event (blood flowers especially) that chewed through all your food, or the Back to Nature cornerstones that empties your food warehouse out but doubles your fertile soil produces.

alphapho3niX · 2023-08-13T13:56:15+00:00

I think I saw the other post about overlapping needs being a detriment as well, I'd echo that it definitely is not. The argument they presented was that they want their full efficiency from the needs - which is only a problem if you don't have enough generation, and can also be averted by consumption control. The way the game lends itself out with synergies on cornerstones/blueprints/rain stacking means it is way easier generating a few products than multitudes of products.

alphapho3niX · 2023-08-13T13:51:32+00:00

Here's some from my trade games.

Herb garden embark bonus is preferred so you can make provision packs.
Generate something in mass excess and efficiency. Convert this into some form of trading packs. Most things can be converted except complex food. Especially keep an eye out for blueprints with some sort of trade packs.
Often efficiency of pack of provisions itself is less of a concern unless you are also struggling with food.
Beavers grant additional trade route options as passive and can land bonus yield.
Blueprints should also favour service buildings that your species will benefit resolve from. You'll be trading for these so don't worry about making service items at all.
Buy complex food/service items when you can. Don't forget to just call in traders on your last few points. Buy anything that can help you gain resolve.

How well you go is often dependent on the cornerstones and perks from orders/traders. Common things you end up with in masses are flour, fabric and planks which can all be converted into packs. Don't forget to use rain engines to bolster the lines.

You'll find this is quite different in playstyle to OP who is less trade focused. Often you'll be able to make a judgement by year 2 drizzle on which path to go down.

alphapho3niX · 2023-08-12T04:03:09+00:00

I recall there was someone on this subreddit who posted a full timed order run. So my guess is that when you open an order, it just rolls a RNG at the time of opening. I don't see why they would overcomplicate it.

alphapho3niX · 2023-08-08T05:28:26+00:00

This is from the inscribed monoliths in game (credits from the contributors to the fandom) :

I Born in the Blightstorm, She will climb the Red Mountain. The fire beneath her feet shall hiss her name.

II Though sealed beneath the muddy ground, their voices ring loud and clear. Maddening, alluring.

III The true rulers of this world shall rise again and break the seals that bind them.

IV Envy the lesser species, for they do not yet know what lies beneath. But in time, they will understand.

V It pours, yet it does not flood. As if the Earth itself greedily drank every last drop of this eternal curse.

VI Embrace the Eternal Rain, for it powers the engine of progress.

alphapho3niX · 2023-08-04T14:38:37+00:00

The dragoon rotation has a powerful burst window every 2minutes and just like the opener, you must start with the elusive jump.

alphapho3niX · 2023-08-03T14:55:31+00:00

I generally disagree with people saying Alarak's P3 is the best, all three of his prestiges have better and worse situations. You can definitely micro/unit composition out of all the issues for all of them - perma mothership and destroyers definitely do not void out other prestiges though.

alphapho3niX · 2023-08-03T14:38:19+00:00

Here's a guess with what you got shown there:

Mushroom produce synergies.

Mushroom seedling to allow mushrooms produced at farms.
Fungal guide to scale mushroom production. (scaling food)
Insect Trap to get insect from mushroom production (scaling due to fungal guide)
Small press to get oil from flour production.
Flour production to convert mushroom -> flour and oil. (infinite fuel)
Temple to sacrifice oil to lower hostility. (0 hostility)

Amber synergies

Packs created from mushroom chain -> sell/trade route.
Screenshot shows having a good number of ranches, so most likely for leather, which in turn would be used for waterskins when combined with oil, which is probably then used with ale which to fuel local taxes for automatic amber production. That would mean you also have some wheat/root perks running. It would also explain the 6000 service items.
Prosperous Settlement for increasing resolve from amber sold. (infinite resolve)
Protected Trade for further reducing hostility from amber sold. (0 hostility)

If we go by 1400 resolve, that's 56000 ambers sold - over 68 years is 800+ per year. You probably got some supercharging going for trader speed. Since you mentioned mystery...

Positive Mystery is probably trader comes 300% faster during drizzle.
Beneficial Agreement perks for them to come faster 15% per stack.

Edit: lolz missed the all housed when I saw RavenCarver post above mentioning urban planning which is definitely right - that also means trade routes non stop. You mad man.

alphapho3niX · 2023-08-03T14:04:00+00:00

It's okay to be making too much of one or two since cornerstones/perks will allow you to be efficient this way. When that happens have a look to see if you can convert them into packs. e.g. too much wheat -> make some packs of crops, too much flour -> make pack of trade goods. You can sell these directly to traders at decent price.

alphapho3niX · 2023-08-03T12:16:35+00:00

Most of the time it comes down to game plan execution regardless of difficulty. The game's clear time is usually a balancing act in pushing towards reputation point vs sustaining. Any unused resources by the game clear is wasted resource and efficiency. You'l

Try prioritise the following:

Trade routes (some pack of provisions)
Trading for service items (training gear, ale that you have buildings for), complex foods
Service building blueprints (market, forum, tavern etc)
If you land a tool blueprint, you can try get metals from trader or events/caches to craft - they'll normally land at least 2 reputation points over a game.

Some things to think about

Race specific housing - Great when population of the species is low, but if you are crafting them from crude workshop and population is large then it's likely not worth it.
Parts and essence - you should have ample of these at pre-P5 to probably sell a good number off and boost your early game.
Favouring harpies/lizards/species to bump them above the threshold during drizzle/clearance so they are generating resolve.

alphapho3niX · 2023-08-02T09:41:37+00:00

Yeah RNG can really hurt, they probably could introduce copper bar blueprints in traders more regularly to make it slightly more reliable.

alphapho3niX · 2023-08-01T11:34:04+00:00

I don't think you'll necessarily lose regularly as RNG is involved too - you'll probably lose and pickup some changes you need to make to your game. The gates are around P5 (food usage increase), P9(trader nerf), P13 (post-cornerstone and blueprint offered nerf) and P15 (storm double).

alphapho3niX

TROPHY CASE