Antediluvian - their legacy is tedium I suppose

The idea is cool, and the weapons are neat - but the long march to getting them is so tedious that by the time I can get them the game is already over and the weapons are just another toy. Seriously - the tasks to get them (missions, resources, research and build) is just too long for them to ever actually be useful.

Here are a few thoughts that would breath life into this slightly misguided add-on;

  1. Introduce armor improvements with site excavation. When a pair of Antediluvian sites is controlled (mine and processing), the resources are automatically used to provide improvements to ARMOR! . For example; Crystal = enhanced detection (maybe enough to see hoplites before they awaken!) , 50% resistant to melee attacks for Orichalcum. 50% resistance to laser, and 25% resistance to poison, fire and acid for Protean. In other words - the more sites you get the easier it becomes to get them!

  2. Instead of requiring a very expensive aircraft to park at a mine - introduce a mine ship - just like you introduced the probe. The mine ship is much cheaper than an aircraft, but also mines slower - only 10% of the existing speed. Forget about the troop requirement, however if there is a troop ship is stationed at a mine production is increased by 50% for each trooper on board.

  3. Have a stash of material already mined/refined at each site so that at least one weapon can be created once they are all controlled.

  4. Introduce some useful but minor single-material weapons so that the pay-off for taking a site is not so deferred. For example; Protean Grenades, Protean smoke bomb, Crystal sniper helmet, crystal pistol; Orichalcum Cannon; Orichalcum club.

  5. Pandora raids could be changed; instead of them trying to take complete control - let it be a raid/invasion. Maybe they get control, but they also may just steal some supplies! Make it like a reverse-scavenging site! The Pandorans rush to get the materials boxes and we must stop them. If a Pandoran unit gets the materials and escape the map - some of the materials come out of our inventory AND the Pandorans get to do some nasty evolutions! (For added fun limit the number of special units the Pandorans get to the number of resources they steal)

3 Likes

all good suggestions. I totally agree on the tediousness of raiding all 12 missions, it is sooooo long.
also, another suggestion couldbe: if pandorans succeed in actually gaining control of the antient sites, they get a permanent bufts for units for the rest of the game.
as for the necessary aircraft to mine, i think it is ok, since it should be a difficult decission for the player to assign the aircaft to mine, not that the aircraft steal missions are much more expencive in regards to the diplomacy cost.