UFO:Alien Invasion
General => Discussion => Topic started by: peterfarge on November 15, 2007, 06:26:33 pm
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Hello Forum,
what doese this dead civilians count mean? On normal compaign there are only 40 dead civ allowed. Are they sumed overall missions? Or are the dead civs meant if you miss a mission? (This 6 dead civs every 1 or 2 days, if you dont play a mission)
Where can I change this settings?
I found this compaing.ufo in one of the pk3 files, is this the only place where the data is stored?
Peter
EDIT: Where can I see the current DeadCivCount?
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yes, there is a max number of allowed dead civilians, if you reached them, you've lost the game - remember, phalanx is there to rescue the humans
this number is not really shown - it was shown in the stats, but our storywriters told me to remove this count. the count varies with difficulty settings.
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Where can I change this number? At home I have no internet, so I must ask without knowing what I have done at home. Is the compaing.ufo file in one of the pk3 the only location of this count? I tried it, but in the compaign description on the main screen was 40 written.
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yes, the campaign.ufo is the only file - but keep in mind, that there are definitions for every difficulty settings
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Is this number fixed or dynamic? Is it ever reset?
It might be an interesting feature if it could change up or down during the course of the game depending on the player's performance - I remember the original X-COM/UFO had periodic feedback reports from the committee that funded the project on how happy they were with the player, using paragraphs to warn if the player was on thin ice or not.
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we have the statistics, too
but the died-civilians-until-you've-lost-the-game is a fixed number
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I don't think that's quite a good idea, the way the game is set up currently. There are many maps where there is absolutely no way to save some civilians - they are quite out of range of PHALANX soldiers, and the aliens kill them on their first turn.
Obviously this puts the player on a timer, but I thought that's what infection spread is for? Something like this could cause players to chose to abstain from missions simply because of civilian deaths, or (if an abstained mission counts as full civilian deaths) make some games simply impossible to win - there would simply not be enough time to research the bare minimum of techs needed to finish the game before too many civilians die in missions.
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I do not think it a good idea either. I am playing a Standard Campaign and I have to win 40 battles before I researched "the Universal Serum" (quite middle in the mid-game, huh?). A Standard Campaign only allows 40 dead civs, and I believe I lost more than 1 civ per battle====>means that I should have lost the game if the dead civ count was implemented.
Instead of making it a short stop, I would recommend to put it in the formula of "Nation Happiness", on the assumption that govs are suppose to protect its citizens. If you let too many of a nation's citizens die, the gov will get angrier with you.
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the lost civs are only counted if you really lose a mission. and only in that case where you don't retry the mission. so 40 is quite high imo
this way you are loosing the game when you ignoring missions or repeatly lose missions. and i really think, that is this ok. you can't just ignore the attack sites and let the civs die - the world counts on you :-D
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Well I got small suggestion, you could make that this count slowly "fade away". For example: After 1 month of game time player loose one death of civilian (i player had 38 civilian dead on list, after moth it lowers to 37).
Would be this nice?
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I agree that to count should at least fade away if it isn't not gotten rid of altogether and replaced with a nation happiness penalty or something. The user should also be told that they have a limit on civilian deaths and how close they are to it. The first time I played the game I was suddenly told I had lost because I had let too many civilians die.
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I don't mind civilian deaths -- even in scenarios you "win" -- having an impact on nation happiness. I think the slow countdown could be a recipe for trouble, though; we wouldn't want someone to take a lot longer than expected because they followed a different research order or something and get frustrated with a seemingly arbitrary time limit.
If you want a time limit, I strongly recommend having it be something that makes sense in the game's context. For example, one of the branches of researching XVI could be the rate at which it infects and spreads and is likely to mutate within human hosts; a countdown could then be established as the time when enough of the population is infected as to make PHALANX's job impossible. ("It is as we feared, Commander. The virus has mutated. Our available time has been cut drastically...")
And frankly, I like the battlescape, so being able to keep going to it as long as I don't lose too many battles appeals to me. :)
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Just to make something clear, we do plan on making civilian casualties count towards nation happiness. But civilians dying in the GEU won't affect how Oceania thinks about you. The loss condition for too many casualties is supposed to be something separate that applies to every civilian loss.
Of course, the hard limit like it is now should eventually be replaced by something dynamic, possibly a decay. That means that you'd only lose the game if you let too many civilians die in a short time. The precise implementation of this is not clear yet, though.
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yes, there is a max number of allowed dead civilians, if you reached them, you've lost the game - remember, phalanx is there to rescue the humans
I don't really like this idea at all. I liked the X-COM mission score count system (and dead civilian penalties) much better.
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I kinda like the dead civ count. Adds an extra challenge to the game and gives you more incentive to go easy on the grenade launchers in populated areas. :)
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Hi!
I like the idea, but there's a little problem with it. I ran into this yesterday. There are missions I can't attend to, because it's outside of the operational range of my craft (not enough fuel to go there and then back). If six or seven civilians die every second day, I reach the limit very quickly, even before I could build a new base with a hangar...
There should be some solution for transporting soldiers without the use of plans, it's irreal that all the planet supports me but I can't travel to othersides of the Earth...
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There are missions I can't attend to, because it's outside of the operational range of my craft (not enough fuel to go there and then back). If six or seven civilians die every second day, I reach the limit very quickly, even before I could build a new base with a hangar...
There should be some solution for transporting soldiers without the use of plans, it's irreal that all the planet supports me but I can't travel to othersides of the Earth...
There is a solution for this. You can attach fuel pods to your dropship in the equip menu under "items". I was able to reach any mission so far with these and they are installed within 1 or 2 hours of game time.
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There is a solution for this. You can attach fuel pods to your dropship in the equip menu under "items". I was able to reach any mission so far with these and they are installed within 1 or 2 hours of game time.
Works in most cases. My last game, though, I couldn't reach Wellington from Europe, because it was simply too far away. Result: Lost game. Too many civ deaths.
:(
BiB
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Works in most cases. My last game, though, I couldn't reach Wellington from Europe, because it was simply too far away. Result: Lost game. Too many civ deaths.
:(
BiB
Same here. I installed a fuel pod on my dropship on the very beginning; this wasn't enough.
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Clearly the range of the dropship needs to be increased, it should be able to make it to any spot on the world if given a fuel pod or two.
Regards,
Winter
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Clearly the range of the dropship needs to be increased, it should be able to make it to any spot on the world if given a fuel pod or two.
Regards,
Winter
This is okay.
But...
Is it impossible to make a way to travel without dropship? I have two reasons for this: the first is the fuel problem, the second is that the hunting ufos are too strong, and are unstoppable after the third month. It would be fine when I could travel with my team on the surface of the Earth ("civil" airplane or even car), across the supporting countries (a simple wayfinding algorithm), and in exchange there is the time loss (days). It would be possible to compute the travel time from the distance, remove the selected soldiers from the base's "pool", then when the travel time is over, fight the battle and then go back. :)
It's quite irreal that with all the earth behind my back, I simply cannot travel to a mission to save them for example when I have no dropship, 'cause an ufo shot it down. I guess in real life I would get help from other countries' armies or in the worst case travel in civil ways... :)
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Well I think it is quiete surreal that a bunch of high tech soldiers wich a recommended as the world's only hope are buying a metro or bus ticket to travel to the ufo crash site or tramp to get there. ;D
A civil airplane would logically get shot down the same way my unarmed transporter is. Since it seems to be fun for these nerds to shoot down easy prey or they are aware of the soldiers and their mission.
And if that tactics work why not use a red cross painting civil "camouflage" on your own transporter? 8)
I say:
Let the dropship not get attacked at all at least for a while (stealth ability, speed, low priority target since (merely) unarmed and no threat. Whatever excuses you can find).
Then give the player an escort option for his fighters.
And last but not least I think the ufo density is a bit high. I sometimes see 2-3 harvesters on the same radar. I cannot imagine space traveling aliens are that inefficient in harvesting/scouting/whatever that they need that much air traffic.
::)
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These two statements are conflicting:
From Mattn:
the lost civs are only counted if you really lose a mission.
Implying that civ deaths on the geoscape are irrelevant. But then:
Works in most cases. My last game, though, I couldn't reach Wellington from Europe, because it was simply too far away. Result: Lost game. Too many civ deaths.
Which implies that civ deaths on the geoscape do count.
May someone please clarify? :-\
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Well I think it is quiete surreal that a bunch of high tech soldiers wich a recommended as the world's only hope are buying a metro or bus ticket to travel to the ufo crash site or tramp to get there. ;D
When there's no other way, why not? ;) Okay, maybe car or other countries' air force, instead of metro... but there should be something. And i didn't said it should be an ever-safe way, i just say it should be _repeatable_.
I say:
Let the dropship not get attacked at all at least for a while (stealth ability, speed, low priority target since (merely) unarmed and no threat. Whatever excuses you can find).
Then give the player an escort option for his fighters.
But I like this idea too. :)
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I agree to the point that the dropship should have "unlimited fuel". It is designed to take you everywhere. It should be slower than the fighters to give you a punishment for only having one base to protect a huge region. Maybe there should be a limited radar or action radius so that you have to deal with missions near you only at the beginning and need to expand later.
You cannot use any other air vehicle because that would also be a victim. Aliens will not say "Oh it is Swiss Air. We don't shoot friendly non combatants!" ;)
And you cannot drive from north america to africa by car even if there would be a tunnel under the ocean it would take too long and this tunnel would be the thing I -as the evil alien that I am- would destroy first because of its strategic value.
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And you cannot drive from north america to africa by car even if there would be a tunnel under the ocean it would take too long and this tunnel would be the thing I -as the evil alien that I am- would destroy first because of its strategic value.
Ship? :)
Okay... I feel you are right... I guess what bothers me is that I cannot buy an airplane, so I cannot try again and again when my dropship is shot down... ;( And I'd like a way what I _can_ try again :)
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Okay, this civilian count is a terrible idea.
Phylanx is supposedly the only organization fighting the aliens, but if we lose a few civies they will shut us down so... who?.. will takover? It doesn't make sense. The aliens are attacking, and we are going to lose people and the only way to survive is to keep fighting them. The score made sense in the original XCOM because if we're doing good in one country, then the other countries might get a bit ticked if we don't help them as well. This is an artificial limit that just doesn't work. Game over should be based on our no longer being able to sustain ourselves and being attacked by the Aliens, not just, "Oh well, we lost a few people. The people of Earth accept our alien overlords and freely take the death they give us without a fight".
From a gameplay perspective, if Civies are going to cause me to lose the game, then there better be some decent AI behind them. They better actively try to get to safety, and not run straight into the enemy and get blasted. They should also be able to pick up a knife and try to fight or something.
I love what you guys have done with the game and greatly appreciate the whole effort, but this idea needs rethinking. This kind of artificial limit is something that would stop me from recommending this to anyone else because new people just will not be able to adapt to that. At the very least, this number should be in the hundreds and have some kind of decay on it as has been suggested.
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I absolutely agree with Mustang's post.
There should be an impact of huge civilian losses or not responding to attacks but not an absolute cap.
If the UN or any other transnational body is involved though there is no need for logic at all. ;)
We've seen that suicide pacifism of "hey we lost three soldiers, lets give up" already in reality.
But I don't want to make this a political topic. It is not rational to confront an hostile alien army and recommend no more than 40 or 60 civilian losses. Even if these numbers symbolize 40.000 or 60.000 people. :o
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I second mustangs emotion.... civilian death count should count against Allied Support, not end game, unless most of the earth is depopulated....
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Implying that civ deaths on the geoscape are irrelevant. But then:
Which implies that civ deaths on the geoscape do count.
May someone please clarify? :-\
My experiences:
1. Any dead civilian at geoscapes counts. Therefore it is important to engage geoscape missions within a few days (i normally wait a bit to avoid night fights)
2. Dead civilians in tactical missions only count if you lose the mission! As long a you finish the mission succesfully, it doesnt matter how many civilians you lost...
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Okay, this civilian count is a terrible idea.
Phylanx is supposedly the only organization fighting the aliens, but if we lose a few civies they will shut us down so... who?.. will takover?
I've interpreted it as you getting the sack as the leader, not phylanx itself getting shut down, which seems sensible.
If its correct that only geoscape deaths count, you would have to consistantly ignore attacks to get to 40.
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That would still be stupid considering the low amount of civilian deaths allowed. How would you measure a manager performance of that kind? How can there be an alternative if you were on the job for month and time is critical?
"We do not know anything about the aliens but if 40 civs get killed you lose your contract and we will get someone else for the position who can try again and lose only 39 civs while getting used to the job and gaining the experience you already have while the aliens have already completed their mission 60%!" ;D
Don't change the horses if you are half way there. ;)
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Yes, but if we assume only geoscape or failed mission deaths count, then you would have to basically fail half a dozen missions (and not bother re-trying them), or allow cities to be attacked.
Its more a case of shooting a lame horse.
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Ok you might artificially create a situation that makes your "work" look like that of my government. :D
Once negative impact on civilian losses (less money and recruits for example) is implemented you will either at least try to do something or not play that day due to a lack of motivation.
In this case why should we have a civilian death cap at all? At some point negative impact will be that high you cannot win anyway because of underfunding.
I would like to see a way to regain reputation by making a better job next time. That would eliminate huge proportions of the luck factor in missions.
Since I do not know how many missions on average are needed to complete the campaign I cannot make a final judgement on the maximal losses but I have a slight feeling 40 is quite low and will at least make my success highly luck dependant.
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My experiences:
1. Any dead civilian at geoscapes counts. Therefore it is important to engage geoscape missions within a few days (i normally wait a bit to avoid night fights)
2. Dead civilians in tactical missions only count if you lose the mission! As long a you finish the mission succesfully, it doesnt matter how many civilians you lost...
I might have correct my former post:
I am not quite sure if i ran into a bug... I just finished a mission, capturing my first alien and i got 2 todo messages and the game was over...
edit: it was about the captured alien, bug submitted in the tracker...
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I'm basically undecided on the issue of the civilian death count, but it's important to note that you can win a mission with all civilians dead. Plus, considering civilian movements, civilian initial positioning, and the alien start positions, some missions start out with civilians dying on turns two and three, with little to nothing that the player can do. Right now, I'm trying to use my soldiers as bodyguards for the civilians, trapping them into places where my soldiers can at least get reaction fire on the aliens. Even thought soldiers are hard to come by, their losses don't automatically lead to game over. Still, I'll have to see how this affects my game experience before I decided where I fall on this issue.
Also, I've always took it in this game and all the X-Com games that game over generally means the government abandoned the project, which eventually leads to alien victory. Of course, I may not have enough experience with the game over screen. ;D
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I have no clue how the random(?) civilian placement on the maps work but a smarter/more complex algorhythm on that would probably solve more problems more quickly than a smarter civi AI.
Since some civis are just running into alien fire I still believe the AI issue is critical if gaining money depends on it.
I am not quite sure if i ran into a bug... I just finished a mission, capturing my first alien and i got 2 todo messages and the game was over...
The game is not over it just kicks you to the main menu. Pressing continue lets you proceed. Just in case anyone new reads this and disappointedly leaves the game without saving.
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Hi. My first post here. I've been a huge fan of all X-Com series and played aftermath and aftershock out of lack of alternative. Spotted UFO: AI a few years ago, didn't expect you guys to get where you are now. Since the main objective of this project is to do the remake of X-Com and stick close to its spirit, developer community has to implement the original score system (well maybe slightly modified) so that you'll get scores after every mission + negative impact of skipping or delaying missions. I was always wondering what did those terror missions represent: a small hostage crisis (area is being quarantined by local security services who are waiting on your organisation to show up as it's in your jurisdiction) or a full blown terrorist attack (aliens get out there and shoot everything in which case i doubt the local security forces would wait on you to show up in a day or so). At the moment it's a little unclear since you come to a mission area (a day late :) ) and see civs running around the area (obviously not kept as hostages) aliens shooting them as if they just landed (reminds me the intro movie from the first x-com) for a quick raid. So basically what I suggest here is to make missions a little more clear and make objectives and time deadlines more specific ( like aliens are raiding a city after 2 hours of battling local security forces they retreated to some area), army/police gives us 6 hrs to respond if we dont mission failed but we dont lose too many points since our base was quite far away and it wasnt possible to respond in time. Alternatevely aliens take VIP hostages at some conference we have a day to respond but lose a lot of points for every VIP hostage killed.
As for the loosing conditions we could be more dependant on financing so that if loose to much support we just wont be able to sustain + countries breaking off the contract with our organisation and demand that our bases are removed from their territory.
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Since the main objective of this project is to do the remake of X-Com and stick close to its spirit
Okay, once more. UFO:AI is not a remake of X-COM. Inspired, yes, but we do not necessarily try to stick as close to X-COM as we can.
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but we dont lose too many points since our base was quite far away and it wasnt possible to respond in time.
Sorry, but in all versions of X-Com, and in this game, nobody cares where the base is located. If you don't respond to a mission, your supporters will be ticked. As far as responding to terror missions is concerned, this game is quite similar to the original X-Com, except we have civilian death count instead of a score system. Personally, I kind of prefer the score system, but I'm glad for the opportunity to try something new. To be honest, all I ask of freeware is that it doesn't hurt my computer. ;D
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Sorry, but in all versions of X-Com, and in this game, nobody cares where the base is located.
All I'm saying is that there should be different deadlines for different kind missions and generally the more time we have to respond the tougher the penalties should be. It's just there has to be some rationale for choosing a night mission over day missions, since no stealth element exists here and aliens see so darn well in the dark - players have to be put on a deadline.
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While I haven't experienced any problems (or any real effect yet) of the Dead Civvie count; even though they seem to consistently run directly into alien fire, I have a proposal.
I won't make up a scientists name here to ask you for significant funding:
While the dead civilian count as of the moment is necessary to compel the player to respond to incidents (although ATM I'm F-ed because my Casablanca Base can't reach the damn Wellington mine), there should also be some sort of reward system for players who DO respond, and respond effectively to these incidents. Something to encourage the use of that little "Replay" button at the after action report. A bonus, an advantage, for taking very few casualties. Since the mechanic is already counted in the game, Civilians Saved stat, perhaps the player should need to maintain a ratio of saved versus killed, say, every saved civilian counts as 1 or fewer civilians killed (or some funding equivalent). I believe as of now the number of civilians saved boosts happiness, but otherwise see no other use for the stat. Or, you could do something as simple as you can only let X number MORE civilians die than you have saved. This way, even if your poor and can't build 6 bases, or your dropship can't reach wellington, you can still keep the game from ending by performing extraordinarily at the missions you CAN reach, until you can build those six bases and reach Wellington...
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Another solution would be to let the dropship have enough fuel for a trip around the world by default. It is a special design for this task in my view. Or let the missions start anywhere around you instead of in a total random location.
Maybe the impact of civilian losses can be modified per map? I find it more difficult to save most/all civis on certain maps than on others. The convoy mission was really painful. There were only two civis rescuable by any means because I could not even see the rest on the long road and the hills around.
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I can't say I'm not partial to the old system, it was more fluidic, and I don't really mind it. From a practical stand point of the story I can't fathom it. I'm charged with protecting billions of people, dubbed "the last hope", and someone wants to cry foul when some idiot does something stupid? I'm sorry the guy happened to die, I'd gladly prevented it I could, but I can't jump in fount of every bullet and still be around to stop the shooter.
Still it's not a bad system, it just needs polish. ;D It just needs a little polish like a lake has a little water.
Before you ask I'm more of a pragmatic guy then anything else, if someone wants to brake "The Law"1 ,A.K.A Do something stupid, I: A. Enforce a punishment ranging from verbal to lethal! B. Let them reap what they have sown! Mercy is preferred, it is not mandate as a matter of operational procedure. (Love being the line between tyranny and good government.) (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2022:36-40;&version=31;)
The only thing that gives pauses is I've had cause to question the intelligence of the civilians. More often then not they either freeze under fire, or instead of running to the people trying to save them "follow this nice glowy beam'o'death back to it's source so I can save the nice alien's from the mean men. (Fade to red)"
1 "The Law" as C.S. Lewes put it in "Mere Christianity", A manual on the proper operation of the human machine. My observation, As a side note it just happens to carry over from the personal to the impersonal to be a solid foundation for government.
*ducks and covers from the ensuing flames*
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These two statements are conflicting:
Which implies that civ deaths on the geoscape do count.
When you ignore a mission altogether it still counts as losing.
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speaking of metaphorical horses... how about "beating a dead horse."
The developers recognize that the civilian death count in 2.2 is not good.
Just to make something clear, we do plan on making civilian casualties count towards nation happiness. But civilians dying in the GEU won't affect how Oceania thinks about you. The loss condition for too many casualties is supposed to be something separate that applies to every civilian loss.
Of course, the hard limit like it is now should eventually be replaced by something dynamic, possibly a decay. That means that you'd only lose the game if you let too many civilians die in a short time. The precise implementation of this is not clear yet, though.
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"The precise implementation of this is not clear yet, though."
You could make a first hack without thinking much about it ;)
Lets say on every mission around 3 civilians die. If 5 die, this number is too hugh, thus adjust the decay towards this~ (depends on the difficulty level maybe as well)
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Hi,
I really like the changes made with this version, except for the civ count. There have been several missions where I couldn't save any civs. Even if I had my troops go running in and a lot of them gets wiped out, I still can't save the civs, since the first few rounds the aliens have already shot half of them.
You really need to get rid of that civ count and just apply their deaths to the supporting country's happiness in their support. I have tried many different tactics to save the civs, but still, by the time my troops get deployed and out where the aliens are hiding, most of the civs are dead.
At least in the X-com games, you had 5 to 10 rounds to get your troops out and about before civs got killed and at least those civs did make an attempt to run away from the aliens, instead towards them.
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this was changed in 2.2.1 (which was just released a few minutes ago)