Is that in the space stage or still in the civ stage? I know there were at least two civ stage configurations. Wasn't sure if they carried over to space stage or not.
Is that in the space stage or still in the civ stage? I know there were at least two civ stage configurations. Wasn't sure if they carried over to space stage or not.
Played it finished. In one phrase: a waste of a good game mechanic. First of all, this i like 5 games in one. The first four are short, very short. The tribe stage and civ stage are like an RTS. And well of course compared to other RTS they suck. Badly. Very badly. What makes the stages playable it is that there is a continuation from the previous stages, which is nice and what Spore wanted to achieve in the Single Player.
The space stage is OK. It is fun. But again... there are many other games that offer space exploration and building things.
In one word, focus on one style or make five games. It is a WASTE to make a whole game mechanic that lasts a few hours. In the end only the space stage takes you time.
Lets thing of a moment what are the good points about the game. You can create and evolve a creature. There are many games that you can evolve an empire. Many games that you play through centuries. Many games that you explore. But SPORE offered you the chance to create a little creature and evolve it. But that is JUST the first two stages. Why??? Why waste all the good points in the first two stages?
They really should focus only on the second stage. Or a combination of the first and second stage. Like be able to create more species. Have more options to evolve. Like a combination of an action/building game. You design your creatures, evolve them. The resources you get should be obtain through the "action" (fighting, singing whatever). Just an idea....
AFAIK, there are only 3 layouts in civ stage, there are at least 6 in the space stage for your home planet only, all colonies use the same layout which is different from the ones on your home planet, I dont yet know about alien cities. Im still adding the code for the extra layouts, and of course the code to print out the config. Im workign on the layouts first, since they will take the most time.Originally Posted by Thantos
There isn't an 'ideal' spice layout according to the manual. How you lay out your cities really depends on what type of strategy you are going for. You can get away with extremely unhappy cities producing a lot of spice if your military might is built up and if you keep religous type empires away from your planets.
I tend to produce angry cities or cities with no happy faces but tons of spice. It is much easier to win back a city than it is to gain new planets using nothing but conversion and/or peaceful means. Taking over a planet as a Warrior is a simple process of terraforming to the point the planet dies at T0 which will then leave the empire on that planet with a max of 1 city left. The final city will also be nearly stripped of all its buildings and defenses which makes for an easy target. Drop a couple bombs and then take over the city. Wash, rinse, repeat. The Grox are the only combatants in the game thus far that have given me trouble.
Lately all I have been doing is conquering cities and planets and collecting the money from them as well as stealing their spice. Also when you destroy the local space fleet you get a lot of cash that falls to the ground and then you just beam it up. You can almost make as much money conquering as you can doing high dollar missions. You also will gain about 85% of the max rank for the space stage by doing this.
Last edited by VirtualAce; 09-23-2008 at 05:30 PM.
Well again, the obvious determining factor is how much unhappiness you can tolerate. You can of course modify the minimum happiness factor, which will usually produce higher spice production.
Which is why I put in an adjustable min happiness. If you want spice production through the roof just set the min happiness to something like -10. If you want really happy cities set the min happiness to 5.
I think all of the space stage colonies are the same. I haven't taken one over that didn't fit the current model.
Not really worried about home planet cities as individually they produce a lot less. And I've always been able to get the entire planet producing enough to max it out by the time I get around to it.
Oh a little trick if those that don't know: If you beam a plant/animal down to a planet in order to fill a bio slot you can immediately beam it back and the slot will remained filled. Great for when you are running low.
Thats why i like the ecologist role, instantly beam up a full T3 biosphere from your home planet. Really maxing the productivity of the home planet is less about 'need' and more for the challenge of solving the problem. I mean ive spent several hours messing around with this app, If I charged myself what I charge my employer it wouldnt be worth it.
Last edited by abachler; 09-23-2008 at 11:21 PM.
added reportign of the building types in sequence, 0 is housing, 1 is entertainment, 2 is factory, I also added the links for the various city configs, I havent gotten around to type 4 or 6 yet.
Code:// Spore Spice Optimizer.cpp : Defines the entry point for the console application. // #include <windows.h> // for the variable types I prefer #include <stdio.h> // Colonies //#define BUILDINGS 12 // this includes building 0, the town hall //#define LINKS 18 // the number of interlinks between the nodes //BYTE Link_A[] = { 1 , 2 , 3 , 0 , 4 , 5 , 5 , 6 , 0 , 7 , 8 , 0 , 9 , 10 , 10 , 0 , 11 , 0 }; //BYTE Link_B[] = { 2 , 3 , 4 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 7 , 6 , 8 , 9 , 9 , 10 , 8 , 11 , 11 , 2 , 2 }; // Home Planet 1 //#define BUILDINGS 12 // this includes building 0, the town hall //#define LINKS 16 // the number of interlinks between the nodes //BYTE Link_A[] = { 1 , 2 , 3 , 0 , 0 , 2 , 0 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 7 , 9 , 10 , 10 , 0 }; //BYTE Link_B[] = { 2 , 3 , 4 , 4 , 2 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 9 , 0 , 9 , 11 , 10 }; // Home Planet 2 //#define BUILDINGS 12 // this includes building 0, the town hall //#define LINKS 19 // the number of interlinks between the nodes //BYTE Link_A[] = { 1 , 2 , 0 , 2 , 3 , 0 , 4 , 5 , 0 , 6 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 8 , 8 , 9 , 0 , 10}; //BYTE Link_B[] = { 2 , 3 , 2 , 4 , 5 , 4 , 6 , 6 , 6 , 8 , 7 , 8 , 0 , 9 , 10 , 10 , 10 , 11}; // Home Planet 3 #define BUILDINGS 12 // this includes building 0, the town hall #define LINKS 16 // the number of interlinks between the nodes BYTE Link_A[] = { 1 , 2 , 0 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 4 , 0 , 6 , 5 , 7 , 8 , 8 , 9 , 0 , 10}; BYTE Link_B[] = { 2 , 3 , 2 , 4 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 6 , 8 , 7 , 8 , 0 , 10 , 10 , 10 , 11}; // Home Planet 5 //#define BUILDINGS 12 // this includes building 0, the town hall //#define LINKS 17 // the number of interlinks between the nodes //BYTE Link_A[] = { 1 , 2 , 0 , 2 , 3 , 0 , 4 , 4 , 0 , 6 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 8 , 9 , 0 , 10}; //BYTE Link_B[] = { 2 , 3 , 2 , 4 , 4 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 6 , 8 , 7 , 8 , 0 , 10 , 10 , 10 , 11}; #define MINIMUM_HAPPINESS 0 BYTE Building[BUILDINGS]; DWORD Cost[] = { 25600 , 12800 , 19200 }; int SpiceCount(BYTE* pBuilding , int* TotalHappy); int IsHappy(BYTE A , BYTE B); int IsProductive(BYTE A, BYTE B); int main(int argc, char* argv[]){ Building[0] = 0; // Building zero is the town hall it is always considered a 'housing' unit int temp = 0; int TotalHappy = 0; DWORD TotalCost; int CurrentBest = 0; __int64 Combos = 1; // this performs the pow() function, only on integers for(int x = 0;x<(BUILDINGS-1);x++){ Combos *= 3; } for(int x = 0;x<Combos;x++){ temp = x; TotalCost = 0; for(int z = 1;z<BUILDINGS;z++){ Building[z] = temp % 3; TotalCost += Cost[Building[z]]; temp = temp / 3; } temp = SpiceCount(Building , &TotalHappy); if(temp >= CurrentBest){ if(TotalHappy >= MINIMUM_HAPPINESS){ CurrentBest = temp; printf("%d , %d Output %d Happy %d Total Cost\n" , x , temp , TotalHappy , TotalCost); for(int y = 1;y<BUILDINGS;y++){ printf("%d " , Building[y]); } printf("\n\n"); } } } return 0; } int SpiceCount(BYTE* pBuilding , int* TotalHappy){ *TotalHappy = 0; int Production = 0; // calculate the happiness from the buildings themselves for(int x = 0;x<BUILDINGS;x++){ if(pBuilding[x] == 1) *TotalHappy += 1; if(pBuilding[x] == 2) *TotalHappy -= 1; } // Calculate the Happiness and Production from the links for(int x = 0;x<LINKS;x++){ *TotalHappy += IsHappy(pBuilding[Link_A[x]] , pBuilding[Link_B[x]]); Production += IsProductive(pBuilding[Link_A[x]] , pBuilding[Link_B[x]]); } return Production; } int IsHappy(BYTE A , BYTE B){ BYTE C = (A << 2) + B; switch(C){ case 1: case 4: return 1; case 6: case 9: return -1; default: return 0; } return 0; // should never reach this spot } int IsProductive(BYTE A , BYTE B){ BYTE C = (A << 2) + B; switch(C){ case 2: case 8: return 1; default: return 0; } return 0; // should never reach this spot }
Have any of you tried to remove the ecosystem on a planet and see if it actually affects the T-score? Since stabilizing a planet requires plopping down trees, bushes, carnivores, and herbivores - removing them should de-stabilize the ecosystem. So far the only way I've found to directly inflluence the T-Score is to use the terraforming tools.
Even though on the surface the gameplay of Spore is deceptively simple I'm beginning to see some very complex hidden game mechanics at work. Playing through again has been almost completely different and I've been able to directly influence the path of my civilization now that I know what to do and when to do it. Seems that Will Wright has a very complex system hidden beneath a very shallow exterior shell.
I think some were disappointed that the environment does not directly affect your creature but it is balanced by the fact that everything you do does affect your creature and his eventual evolution to the space stage. The first time through I was a Warrior through and through and my cities produced little to no spice. Second time through my creature started as a herbivore, progressed to a carnivore (for lack of a good food source) and then in the tribal went back to being more peaceful (save wiping out 1 tribe). All this pushed me into the industrial category during the civ stage and my cities produce tons of spice, however, my buildings are much more expensive. Also at first I did not realize that each piece you put on your vehicles affects different attributes of that vehicle. So while the game is so simple it is actually very complex.
And the space stage is beyond comprehension. There are so many planets and so much to do. Sure it is repetitive but there is rewards in it. With each badge you get some new ability which will help you expand your empire be it by force or more peaceful means. I have so many planets in my first game and so much potential to make a ton of cash it is just mind blowing. Keeping all my planets maxed out on spice production is a huge task and one I'm almost too lazy to try. But that isn't the game's fault it is mine. It would reward me nicely if I did maintain my planets better and if I made more T3's (again I'm too lazy and most of my planets are T0's or T1's).
Tons of potential and great gaming ahead if I would just get off my lazy butt and get to it.
Last edited by VirtualAce; 09-24-2008 at 08:35 PM.
You can't remove all of the plants and animals via the tractor beam. You can quite literally plop one down and instantly pull it back up and that slot will remain filled. There is a tool you can use to wipe out a species but I haven't used it so I don't know if it is animal only or if it'll work on plants as well.
I woudl realyl like it if you could make spice routes that woudl automatically seel spice and deliver the sporebucks. It get spretty tedious making spice runs for cash. the way teh game makes you move between interstellar and planetary mode.
Yes the manual spice collection does get tedious. Many also complain about the frequency of attacks but I noticed my people were feared among others and did not often get attacked that often. Also even though your planets contact you every time a pirate or enemy ship is attacking I have noticed if you give the cities good enough defenses they normally take care of themselves.
The eco-disasters are quite annoying and senseless. Why should I have to travel hundreds of light years just to shoot 5 infected creatures to save an entire planet?
I ignore all the pirate raids. It turns out that if they are attacking they can't destroy anything if you aren't there. If they are stealing they'll only steal like 1 spice. Considering I probably wouldn't make it back to the colony to pickup that spice before it got topped off again big whoop.
Grox raids are also pointless to respond to (unless it is on your colony) as you get nothing for helping out.
I would love automated spice routes that give cash and not lead to economic buy out. I would also like more then 3 trade routes (trade routes increase how much they like you).
