Arceans and Weather Control

I'm wondering if anyone else has noticed and though about this?

The tech "Weather Control" provides a +10% bonus to PQ quality. This means that if you started out with PQ +20%, you would get a PQ bonus of +30%. For those of you who don't know what that means, it means that when you colonize a planet, for every 3.33 tiles the planet has, it will gain another tile.

For instance:
Class 4 --> Class 5
Class 7 --> Class 9
Class 10 --> Class 13
Class 14 --> Class 18
Class 17 --> Class 22
etc...

However, to fully benefit from this tech, you need to research it first, which is a problem because its one of those early expensive techs. I tried this out small map and found that I was far behind on the colonization race. Suffice to say, I didn't do very well when the Drengin attacked, I was still trying to catch up after spending so much resources on "Weather Control". It would most likely work better on a larger map where one would have more time to catch up.

The upside to this tech is, you need it to research the special enviroment colonization techs. So if you were to skip out on the initial +20% PQ bonus when setting up your civ, you can still benefit from an atleast +10% bonus to PQ then.

The question I want to ask is: Do you like this tech as is, or would you rather it be like another terraforming tech (like soil enhancement), or something else?
2,877 views 6 replies
Reply #1 Top
Weather Control needs one simple change to be perfect:

It needs to (as is says it's supposed to in the tech description) improve planets that have already been colonized. If it adds extra tiles to existing colonies, it suddenly becomes a hugely useful tech, no matter when in the game you research it, or what size map you are playing on.
Reply #2 Top
Weather Control needs one simple change to be perfect:

It needs to (as is says it's supposed to in the tech description) improve planets that have already been colonized. If it adds extra tiles to existing colonies, it suddenly becomes a hugely useful tech, no matter when in the game you research it, or what size map you are playing on.
End of quote


Makes perfect sense. I wouldnt want it any other way.
Reply #3 Top
Take a look at the Gameplay example posted. The tech is now (in Stardock's internal test version) supposed to be provide a planetary improvement that, when built, gives a number of bonus tiles (up to 3) to that planet at the cost of 5bc maintenance.

So, there you go. Existing colonies will get the benefit of Weather Control
Reply #4 Top
It does indeed provide for existing colonies, once built on that planet. It is not a civ wide bonus. But i certainly do agree that it is too expensive. I played 1 game as the Arceans, and got monstered by the Terrans no less!!
Reply #5 Top
Well it doesn't make sense that it will only effect uncolonized planets. That really needs to be fixed.
Reply #6 Top
Take a look at the Gameplay example posted. The tech is now (in Stardock's internal test version)...
End of quote


I've looked at that post not to long ago. Looks like weather control is going to get a boost.

Still, I wonder how many player will try to take advantage of a +30% PQ bonus on a small map (and fail miserbly)?