[Dev Team] Wilderness Open Beta Available [updated 2025-07-03]

[ShoGuL]

I tried to play a game on the Wilderness open beta as a non-wilderness (played gestalt machine empire), and all my maintenance drones disappeared... the surface view said they were there, but they were not on the economy screen - very weird. Changed to 4.0.21 and it works fine.

 

[Archael90]

I played Wilderness some more and have a few additional thoughts (beyond what was mentioned in previous posts — those still stand as valid):

1. Vocational Genomics don't seem to work for some reason.
2. Wilderness development feels very slow, especially compared to my last two runs — one with genetic predators, and one of my usual death cults.
   Cradle of Life is fine, though I do think it could have a planet limit to slow early biomass growth. Later growth could then be accelerated.
   My suggestion: calculate growth (and assembly from traits like Budding) not based on current biomass, but rather on the total biomass spent on buildings and districts. If this approach is used, then biomass costs should not be affected by building cost modifiers.
3. Losing a planet is devastating for Wilderness.
   Not just because of the planet itself, but especially if it's reclaimed shortly after. Regular empires have their infrastructure and pops intact, so if they recapture a planet quickly, they retain everything. Meanwhile, Wilderness loses everything.
   My suggestion: significantly increase planetary defenses — boost army strength and health (remove morale), reduce bombardment damage, and make each biome generate defensive armies.
   The Domination tradition that gives +2 defense armies to communal biomes could instead grant +1 defense army to every biome and/or to buildings.
4. In my opinion (though I might be biased) – the Mycorrhizal Ideal civic, or at least the World Shaper ascension perk, should be part of the Wilderness base kit.
   They literally can't use any other world type — not hive worlds, nor machine worlds (obviously), habitats, ringworlds, ecumenopoleis, or even relic worlds.

 

[Spitnik]

the oposition ai is brain dead. i dont mean is bad. i mean they still have the starting buildings/districts in their capitals.

i turtled in admiral until the late game and i had no oposition whatsoever in the GC spite not trying to win diplo weight. they had little to no economies.

besides that the swarm behaviour in battles is bugged they fly to the center of the system and stay there taking potshots w longer range weapons if the have. i was stuck for quite a while fighting some transport that their mandibles coudnt reach. i had to send a second fleet to delete the transports to rescue the fleet

also if you grow/specialize you planets enough you might need trade to just allow resources to flow between planets. still they have very little need for trade

i earned a reward in a rift that gave me a tech option for extra trait points, this is after i had ascended, and the tech would finish but never give the points and it would be drawn again and again to be researched

 

[Archael90]

Oh, i forgot: Wilderness have pathethic pop count (it have too). So maybe its diplo weight from pops could be removed, and instead avarage weight from other three fields could apply instead of actual pops? (with pop weight modifers).
Or anything else that would make wilderness somewhat viable in GC (assuming AI is not braindead or we play with human players).
Maybe wilderness planets through size, districts and bildings built. Or maybe calculate total number of biomass used on buildings/districts (tho this one might make wilderness pop diplo weight too much because of its early growth from craddle of life).
Also:
Pronound "we"... who is "we"? Biomass is gestalt consciousness? Is it? Isn't biomass mere bricks and mortar.
IMO wilderness is "I", not "WE". But if someone really wants to feel biomass as counsciouss, so maybe give players choice of using plural or singular?

 

[username-A]

do all unemployed organic pops disappear on gestalt worlds? When I play as machine servitors, I can't find my biotrophies. So you bug-makers just hid wilderness pops, and this change also affected other pops that shouldn't have been hidden

 

[username-A]

and whats the point to hide the biomass，all knows its pops ，i think we need to know their amounts on each planet

 

[Archael90]

and whats the point to hide the biomass，all knows its pops ，i think we need to know their amounts on each planet

Why we need to know that?

 

[username-A]

Why we need to know that?

dumb toaster，our organic pop's growth is related on pop amounts，we know that to avoid use too many pops which cause a much lower pop growth.besides ,this change caused a lot bad effects on other origins without any good ones

 

[Archael90]

dumb toaster，our organic pop's growth is related on pop amounts，we know that to avoid use too many pops which cause a much lower pop growth.besides ,this change caused a lot bad effects on other origins without any good ones

This is why it's beta, and it's tested.
Still, don't know why we need to know how many pops are on a planet.
Only reason I see is to know when my planet become depopulated and abandoned. Which is not an argument for showing pops and rather how to improve it. And my suggestion is:
Wilderness should not abandon planets if pop cijnt drops to 0. It should retain planets as long as any building (or just cradle of life) exists. So either make it two requirements: existing pops and/or cradle of life building. Or just cradle of life and make every planet start with one.

 

[Eladrin]

Part of our intent with these changes is to make them not lose planets if their population somehow hits zero. (It'll be tough to recover from that, though, due to how biomass growth works.)

The Biomass / Civilian / Maintenance Drone strata not being visible is unintended, and will be fixed when we next update the Open Beta.

 

[Archael90]

Part of our intent with these changes is to make them not lose planets if their population somehow hits zero. (It'll be tough to recover from that, though, due to how biomass growth works.)

The Biomass / Civilian / Maintenance Drone strata not being visible is unintended, and will be fixed when we next update the Open Beta.

IMO it's great to not have any pops on wilderness worlds. I not only don't mind, but enjoy not seeing Biomass as pops, tho lot of things have to be changed to acknowledge that, like logistics tradition. But yeah, civilians and other working unemployed pops should be fixed :x

 

[Psykhes]

Two questions about the mechanics of wilderness.

Since biomass are essentially pops your empire size can get quite high if you have a larger surplus of biomass. So you are basically forced to spend it, even to the extent to demolish buildings and re-grow them if you can or want not to settle additional planets.
Is that intended behaviour?
If not, maybe give wilderness a -100% empire size from pops modifier?

Another thing is that by a large margin the best strategy at the start is to build as many Cradles of Life as you can as soon as you can and it stays that way till you run out of available non-fully upgraded planets. It's a bit boring gameplay IMO.
Is that, too, intended behaviour?
If not, limiting Cradles, as was suggested above, is on its own no good solution either, because it would slow expansion and infrastructure buildup too much.
If there is a Cradles limitation the biomass per Crandle and / or the biomass costs for buildings and upgrades would have to be rebalanced.

 

[Red Death]

Since biomass are essentially pops your empire size can get quite high if you have a larger surplus of biomass. So you are basically forced to spend it, even to the extent to demolish buildings and re-grow them if you can or want not to settle additional planets.
Is that intended behaviour?
If not, maybe give wilderness a -100% empire size from pops modifier?

This makes sense, since Empire Size is there to pare research and tradition progress down a bit so that it doesn't scale linearly with your overall economy size. Though I suppose Wilderness pops do contribute to your economy a little bit by producing biomass.

Perhaps having an infinite sink for Biomass is an alternative?

 

[Archael90]

This makes sense, since Empire Size is there to pare research and tradition progress down a bit so that it doesn't scale linearly with your overall economy size. Though I suppose Wilderness pops do contribute to your economy a little bit by producing biomass.

Perhaps having an infinite sink for Biomass is an alternative?

Or just count biomass spend to build instead of free one?

I can imagine it that roaming biomass have 0 size and contribute to nothing excpept just being there, also uses no housing and no ammenities.
No building cost modifers should affect biomass costs.
Biomass in infrastructure contribute to empire size, diplo weight and pop growth purpouses (with the last, craddle of rebirth could be nerfed and limitted since now all buildings produces biomass).

 

[indalecio248]

And a question (and maybe food for thought).
Can wilderness allow other species to live on its surface? Feels very promising to create empire of living, thinking planets that creates paradices on its own to let other species thrives (both hiveminded and single-minded species).

I would very much like that. I got the Keides, Scion of Vagros questline, and it was absolutely heartbreaking that on reviving Keides from cryosleep, the only option I got. 'This child is not our responsibility'. And I had the 'Empath' civic. If any of hiveminds would take in a small child it would be the Empath hivemind.

On another note, the Wilderness city district needs a Refinery specialization. I can only build refineries in either Heartgrove or Moltgrub district specialization. But neither one grants me additional refinery jobs when I build new city districts. And frankly, it always feels like I could use more gases/crystals/motes.

 

[sandwich8]

After playing, wilderness could use some buffs, imo--
1. Why are they locked to purity ascension, when it's so bad for them? They don't get an advanced purity government, they have a tradition that gives -25% district/planet empire size when they get +200% empire size from their government, +5 planet decision doesn't matter when you barely get that much biomass (or later on influence) to begin with, they can't pick Genesis Guides to benefit from the presapient assimilation, etc. They could really use a tradition here that gives them more biomass income.
2. Why did they lose the ability to terraform a planet to its own type? Paying an additional 250-500 biomass per planet adds up. Terraforming Candidates are also exorbitantly expensive, and often locked behind ascension perks
3. Their early game is boring.
4. If you get stuck behind enemy borders you have no way to get extra planets. No habitats, no ringworlds, no ecumenopolis/hive worlds/machine worlds. Just paying exorbitant amounts of biomass for a single district

 

[indalecio248]

To add to the above, in one of my previous runs, I got 2 Relic Worlds as a Wilderness Empire, which I can't use at all. Which makes sense that a Relic world shouldn't be usable by such a weird intelligence, but I think I should get the option to terraform it into something, like maybe a regular world or a gaia world.

EDIT: One more thing, but your root mass (primary city building/district) really aught to give some broodsynth jobs to provide biomass. It shouldn't be put all on the Cradle of Rebirth.

 

[Archael90]

I understand mechanical limitations of why wilderness can't use special planets. But I don't understand why wilderness can't changed them.
Natural but changed planets like ecus, hive, relics and even machine, should be able to be terraformed and used by wilderness. Ringworlds are artificial planets, but as endgame special reward from ascension perk. All empires should be able to use those, and since RW is made of all celestial objects in a system, why wilderness can't overgrown its construction and became this massive thing?

 

[Calvax]

I understand mechanical limitations of why wilderness can't use special planets. But I don't understand why wilderness can't changed them.
Natural but changed planets like ecus, hive, relics and even machine, should be able to be terraformed and used by wilderness. Ringworlds are artificial planets, but as endgame special reward from ascension perk. All empires should be able to use those, and since RW is made of all celestial objects in a system, why wilderness can't overgrown its construction and became this massive thing?

When it comes to Ecus we already have aversion with an ecosystem: relic worlds. Wilderness should be able to convert ecus into them and be them.

 

[Archael90]

When it comes to Ecus we already have aversion with an ecosystem: relic worlds. Wilderness should be able to convert ecus into them and be them.

I can agree with that, but relic world is like tomb world for normal empires, or should be imo. Maybe with job efficiency maluses, but with unique districts? Not regular relic worlds tho.