Alpha4f difficulty

[Tynan]

Alpha4f is out! Check ludeon.com for the latest. I changed the storytellers a lot so I'm very curious about how they're working for you.

Please only respond to the poll if:

-You played a game on Cassandra Classic
-You played a long game (at least 50 days)

Any further feedback/stories/numbers/savegames you wish to post are also welcome. Thanks all.

[GrimTuna]

Somewhat conflicted regarding how to answer this poll.

Pirate difficulty seemed fine. Random events seemed fine.

Having a dozen squirrels go psychotic and murder my entire colony seemed a teeny bit unfair though. This was at around the 55 day mark, but I only had 4 colonists (would have had 5 - one death to pirates). Had 2 pistols and 2 rifles equipped at the time of the attack. The squirrels stacked up at a door, bashed it down, and then proceeded to incapacitate my colonists one by one (each one taking a couple of seconds to go down). I managed to equip frag grenades on the last colonist, but there was no way to get her to shoot because the squirrels are too damn fast (can't move away fast enough to get room to force-attack before getting meleed again).

If I had been thinking, I would have stacked all my colonists on one of my own turrets and then shot it until it exploded (hoping some colonists lived through the explosion). That doesn't strike me as the kind of thing a colonist would do though (very out of character meta gaming).

Some possible suggestions:

• Let melee hit everything in a square. The stacked squirrels would have probably gone down then.
• Let turrets shoot at the annoying furry rats.
  
• Larger movement/offense/defense penalties for stacked creatures.
• Let me train a squirrel army of my own.

[Untrustedlife]

Somewhat conflicted regarding how to answer this poll.

Pirate difficulty seemed fine. Random events seemed fine.

Having a dozen squirrels go psychotic and murder my entire colony seemed a teeny bit unfair though. This was at around the 55 day mark, but I only had 4 colonists (would have had 5 - one death to pirates). Had 2 pistols and 2 rifles equipped at the time of the attack. The squirrels stacked up at a door, bashed it down, and then proceeded to incapacitate my colonists one by one (each one taking a couple of seconds to go down). I managed to equip frag grenades on the last colonist, but there was no way to get her to shoot because the squirrels are too damn fast (can't move away fast enough to get room to force-attack before getting meleed again).

If I had been thinking, I would have stacked all my colonists on one of my own turrets and then shot it until it exploded (hoping some colonists lived through the explosion). That doesn't strike me as the kind of thing a colonist would do though (very out of character meta gaming).

Some possible suggestions:

• Let melee hit everything in a square. The stacked squirrels would have probably gone down then.
• Let turrets shoot at the annoying furry rats.
  
• Larger movement/offense/defense penalties for stacked creatures.
• Let me train a squirrel army of my own.

Squirrel,muffalo armies would be an awesome addition....

I want a war-muffalo

[Aenir]

I was doing great until an army of 25 squirrels slaughtered my colony of 6 on day 41.

[Nasikabatrachus]

I played a 70-day game on Cassandra Classic. Although I got a little bit of non-standard difficulty, in that my first three colonists couldn't fight fires and my first recruit couldn't do so either, it wasn't appreciably challenging. The frequent psychotic squirrels and the occasional wave of mad muffalo kept me on my toes, but it was nothing 3-4 colonists couldn't deal with by grouping together and using their guns. I'd really like to see these alleged 25-squirrel waves. The worst I got was 4 muffalo. The lone squirrels were more annoying than anything else.

All the regular raids I received could be met in strength with the aid of maybe a turret, and an outlander town even came to my aid once when I didn't even remotely feel a need for their assistance. Here's how I dealt with the last raid, which came on day 70: http://puu.sh/9k1eO/c67a4bbc7d.png
There were originally eight tribals. My colonists, armed with pistols and one lee-enfield, advanced on them and overwhelmed them.

The wood economy changes were interesting. I wasn't as replete with logs as I'm used to being, since I couldn't divide them into planks anymore, but my first buildings were set up more quickly. Normally I have to be pretty conservative at first, and just stick with one log structure at first and add to it as plank production ramps up. Over time, I cleared away a lot of trees, but I was surprised by how little I was actually able to build with the amount of wood I got. Then again, most people won't be building medium-ish log structures. Here's what it looked like at the end: http://puu.sh/9k2VE/de40bd1706.png

I also noticed the lag time between actually cutting trees down and getting access to wood much more in this version. I suggest that hauling be made part of the wood chopping job, if that's possible.

My favorite thing about this game was having to deal with colonists incapable of being firefighters. Instead of designating home zones, I had to take down buildings, put up emergency walls, and cut away plants. In some ways, it felt more realistic than being able to have colonists wave at the fire until it went away because I had to consider fire's effect on its environment as a force in its own right.

[UrbanBourbon]

I was doing great until an army of 25 squirrels slaughtered my colony of 6 on day 41.

...which is due to the universal melee damage. Melee aspect is utterly disproportionate that way. Do squirrels ever even miss an attack? I can't remember. On top of that, squirrels are a small target, inflicting a major hit penalty for anyone shooting at them, even at point blank range. Small size + unrefined melee aspect = disaster. And it doesn't even end there. A pistol does just as much damage as a single melee attack. That alone warps things to animal packs' favor. It takes 3 pistol rounds to kill a squirrel. They shouldn't be called squirrels anymore... Gods help if you fight in darkness or bad weather. The weather penalties are pretty unreasonable as well.

I've dealt with packs of 29 squirrels and 25 boomrats at one point (clarification: 2 separate attacks), but I had 12 colonists then. Didn't get a scratch but then again I had already built a small town with plenty of buildings, corners and streets. I divided my guys in groups of 4 and covered nearby streets, avoiding friendly fire. When animals go insane, it's vital to get together fast.

[frosty840]

Still not really sure what I'm doing. Got through to Day 91 without much fuss. http://imgur.com/yMHJOjx
Noticed that my colonists tended to be incapped more (only one died so far, and that's because they were 'nadespammed while they were down).

Could do with some way to get rid of harvested agave fruit, really. Traders don't seem to want it. Maybe I could lure some boomrats into it..

I got a lot more trees than I'm used to seeing, don't know if that's coincidence. By the time I needed to resupply on them, most of the trees had been burned up by lightning fires, though.

Would be nice to be able to designate areas as orchards, where grass is eliminated, food plants are left and auto-harvested. You can see from the screenshots that I've got a bit of a berries/agave cultivation, but harvesting them was always a tiresome, manual affair.
Not that food was ever an issue, mind you.

I figure I'm two or three more raids away from pissing off Cassandra Classic enough that she sends some game-ending minigunner-infested horror-raid at me.

Medieval Oafs seem a touch OP. Maybe prevent them from using the shooting skill.

Overall, seemed quite a bit easier than I'm used to, but I'm still learning, so maybe I was just doing better. Or was attacked less. Difficult to be sure.

[Untrustedlife]

Still not really sure what I'm doing. Got through to Day 91 without much fuss. http://imgur.com/yMHJOjx
Noticed that my colonists tended to be incapped more (only one died so far, and that's because they were 'nadespammed while they were down).

Could do with some way to get rid of harvested agave fruit, really. Traders don't seem to want it. Maybe I could lure some boomrats into it..

I got a lot more trees than I'm used to seeing, don't know if that's coincidence. By the time I needed to resupply on them, most of the trees had been burned up by lightning fires, though.

Would be nice to be able to designate areas as orchards, where grass is eliminated, food plants are left and auto-harvested. You can see from the screenshots that I've got a bit of a berries/agave cultivation, but harvesting them was always a tiresome, manual affair.
Not that food was ever an issue, mind you.

I figure I'm two or three more raids away from pissing off Cassandra Classic enough that she sends some game-ending minigunner-infested horror-raid at me.

Medieval Oafs seem a touch OP. Maybe prevent them from using the shooting skill.

Overall, seemed quite a bit easier than I'm used to, but I'm still learning, so maybe I was just doing better. Or was attacked less. Difficult to be sure.

Build a growing zone.

---------------------------
Got a game on about day 90 right now.

I have never been threatened by anything really, i got attacked by a pirate group ONCE, and am constantly attacked by small groups of tribal s.. but nothing i cant deal with...

It seems like it got remarkably easier.....

which is a bad thing, i do not really feel challenged.

[frosty840]

Oh, I've got a growing zone, but that's for spuds, which your colonists have to plant manually.

I want something that lets self-setting berry plants and agaves grow, but makes your colonists rip up all the grass.

I'm just lazy that way :p

[Untrustedlife]

Oh, I've got a growing zone, but that's for spuds, which your colonists have to plant manually.

I want something that lets self-setting berry plants and agaves grow, but makes your colonists rip up all the grass.

I'm just lazy that way :p

You can grow strawberries and stuff too (click the name of the plant that is growing to change it)....

[DeMatt]

Hrm... seemed really easy up until about day 120.  Then doom-raids started happening (4 caterpillars, 20 or so pirates, 40 or so tribals, etc., all just a few days apart).

A couple things to note:

• I chose to dig into a mountain rather than build out in the open.  The doom-raids didn't really start until I tried walling off an exterior area.
  
• The mapgen gave me lots of desert and not much soil.  Didn't think about it until I got to day 3 and realized the animals had eaten all my survival meals, for lack of poverty grass.  Trying to keep a farm going in the face of masses of starving animals was... interesting... until I got off my butt and started using the Hunt command.
  
• I think two hostile tribes is one too many, for the default difficulty at least.

[Tynan]

A lot of people voted 'too hard'. Is it just the animal waves? What is too hard, exactly?

[Untrustedlife]

A lot of people voted 'too hard'. Is it just the animal waves? What is too hard, exactly?

keep in mind the majority still voted from *normal to too easy*
(7 people voted too hard on the last version too)

The sheer amount of melee creatures i think is the issue here, (having an entire herd of muffalo attacking one person etc) I had that issue, lost half my colony to a herd of those things because of this.

[Tynan]

The animals aren't too hard to handle if you don't let them stack up. I've had success by having my guys run outside into little groups where the squirrels/muffalo approach one by one.

But anyway, losing half your colonists to a doom wave of muffalo doesn't sound like and issue at all... it sounds like FUN!

.... or is it really unbalanced and unbeatable? Inquiring minds want to know.

[max97]

I am finding 4f good, got destroyed earlier, much earlier, in 4e though one thing i have found is that colonists do not automatically retaliate to threats such as being attacked by a squirrel which in previous changes would have shot at the attacking animal rather than walking until theyre dead.

Apart from this im having fun =)