How would you make game harder?

[Invictus5966]

I have seen several posts here about the game being too easy and I just watched the youtube video of the reaction to peoples comments so that got me thinking how would you make the game harder?

I have some thoughts on this:

1 - Solar flares: That would do some major damage to a planet that doesn't have earths atmosphere

2 - Different travel times for rockets: mars and the Earth don't rotate around the sun at the same speed so the distance varies so perhaps one cannot always send a rocket or make the travel time vary but make it predictable.

3 - Add levels of danger from 4 levels to a max of 10 with the current 4 being say 5?




Thoughts?

 

[Mauer]

Make it harder to keep colonists comfortable? I only got three or four renegades in 150+ sols of play, though apparently some people find it hard now for some reason and because of that they want the domes to connect.

More random events could help, a sinkhole swallowing a dome whole maybe in the mid-to-late game, nuclear meltdown of a fusion plant, giant asteroid that cannot be shot down, etc. Of course some people are gonna hate this kind of thing, so they could make it a hard game option.

 

[Zinegata]

Double the maintenance rate is probably the easiest way to make the game much harder in a hurry.

Colony comfort isn't hard to maintain. It's just that people keep insisting on having all the service buildings in a Dome without realizing that there are other factors (e.g. Loners who hate high population Domes) that affect comfort and sanity. Or that things like Hanging Gardens greatly improve home comfort, which in many ways is the main determinant of comfort.

 

[Proxy85]

Honestly, I think taking a close look at banished can show a lot of ways to improve the difficulty. A few things specifically:

1.More things. It's weird that seemingly the only martian exports are copyrights and rare metals. It's weird that you can choose between like 8 crops but just grow soybeans everywhere all the time and have grocers filled with soybeans and diners serving only soybeans and soy milk and everyone is totally cool with that. Why not make all those different crops matter? Maybe a variety of food could lead to a health or comfort bonus. Maybe factories to turn advanced resources into exportable goods. Fruit could be turned into martian wine. Polymers could be turned into martian furniture or clothes or something. Electronics into... idk, something. Trade goods factories would give more jobs too.

2. Colonist maintenance. It's too easy to just plopping down domes with an infirmary, one or two farms, a grocer, a diner, and have all the rest of the spots be apartments. People will be unemployed, but it doesn't matter. "Idle hands are the devils playthings" as the saying goes. Make unemployed people become renegades. You'd have to add jobs though somehow, because unemployment seems inevitable as the game is now. Which leads me to another point...

3. Breakthroughs are broken. Automated mines is easy mode. Advanced cables and pipes are easy mode. Automated fusion plants... You almost cannot play through a game without getting a breakthrough that completely trivializes some aspect of the game. You could just not research them, but I'm not a fan of the "ignore part of the game to make it more fun" argument. Perhaps a hard mode that can make some of these stronger breakthroughs less powerful or remove them all together? As an example maybe Automated mines in hard mode only works at 10% instead of 50%?

4. Cascading failures. This is another thing from banished that i think this game could benefit from. I'd like to see more situations where my neglecting one system can cause a domino effect of failures that leads to a restart or reload being required. Maybe a meteor hits my windmills which were too bunched which causes a power shortage which causes my water extractors to go off line which leads to a water shortage, which leads to crop failure which leads to a food shortage, which leads to death. This can happen now, but with batteries and water tanks I'd almost have to turn it to 3x speed, turn off my drone hubs and go take a nap for that chain of events to have enough time to unfold.

5. Drones and shuttles are too good at their job. I don't really have some grand idea for how to fix this one, but I do think it removes a lot of difficulty from the game. You can plop down universal storage any where and as long as you have a good amount of shuttles they will take everything where it needs to go in a timely manner. If they aren't moving fast enough, just get more shuttles and drones. As long as you have storage for every resource in range of every drone hub more drones and shuttles is always a solution to any resource flow issue. Sure, you can optimize storage placement to help your drones and shuttles be more effective, but you don't need to, especially late game.

 

[stavern]

The breakthoughs are so very nice techs to have. I would change it depending on easy/hard level there would only be 3-6 anamolies on a map. Since i think it is random who you get it would make each game a little bit different.

 

[Zinegata]

2. Colonist maintenance. It's too easy to just plopping down domes with an infirmary, one or two farms, a grocer, a diner, and have all the rest of the spots be apartments. People will be unemployed, but it doesn't matter. "Idle hands are the devils playthings" as the saying goes. Make unemployed people become renegades. You'd have to add jobs though somehow, because unemployment seems inevitable as the game is now. Which leads me to another point...

It's more of a housing issue. You get lots of new people due to births in the colony, which tends to greatly exceed the mortality rate. Lowering the birth rate or increasing the conditions needed before birth occurs is what's needed.

5. Drones and shuttles are too good at their job. I don't really have some grand idea for how to fix this one, but I do think it removes a lot of difficulty from the game. You can plop down universal storage any where and as long as you have a good amount of shuttles they will take everything where it needs to go in a timely manner. If they aren't moving fast enough, just get more shuttles and drones. As long as you have storage for every resource in range of every drone hub more drones and shuttles is always a solution to any resource flow issue. Sure, you can optimize storage placement to help your drones and shuttles be more effective, but you don't need to, especially late game.

Lol, I actually agree but there are so many players complaining about how Drones and Shuttles are supposedly bad at their jobs as it is!

 

[Holce]

Drones and shuttles are good most of the time. But they keep forgetting to mantain the electronic factory when electronics get rare... They have no priorities. So sometimes they do stupid thinks like going fo metal arround a big ravine and all ending out of energy on the way back.

But with the exception of those little problems they work fine. Making them useless will only create a false difficulty. Having to give order to 200 drones every minute would make the game harder but not more enjoyable.

The same is true with increasing maintence or homeless penalty. All make the games harder but because you cannot control the natality and don't have any endless resource for metal, rare metal and concrete, this will be a condamnation of the colony in the long run. One interest of the game is to create a colony that can manage itself nearly endlessely.

The early game is about surving until mostly undependant. The middle game is about increasing the size of the colony and managing the mystery. the end game is about creating the better colony possible. The colony must work without any control and give the better life condition. Of course the later objective is not in the game. So the game does not give it to you. I just consider it natural. Of course with all the tools the last objective is not that hard.

 

[spannbeton]

I am making a hard difficulty mod already. feel free to give suggestions.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1339570684

 

[Lt Loco]

I am making a hard difficulty mod already. feel free to give suggestions.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1339570684

No outsourcing makes the Church hilariously difficult until you've surveyed most of the map. Game over, restart if you don't get enough research to get at least Explorer AI and EMI within 3-4 anomalies on mountainous maps.

 

[spannbeton]

No outsourcing makes the Church hilariously difficult until you've surveyed most of the map. Game over, restart if you don't get enough research to get at least Explorer AI and EMI within 3-4 anomalies on mountainous maps.

You are supposed to use your own scientists. Import food from earth instead of making it yourself.
Religious extremists being able to outsource to earthly based science institutes strikes me as kind of counterintuitive.

Building a Research lab should be a priority with the church.

 

[Bronzewing]

tbh if I don't get lucky and uncover the first passenger module tech or better yet get Cryosleep breakthrough early for a huge founder group I'll usually just import some food and make my entire first 12 just run a research base. Give them an infirmary, a grocers, 4 support staff to run those, and a gym for social without needing staff. Everyone else in the lab until colonist wave 2 begins.

 

[Eled the Worm Tamer]

The best way to give us more difficulty, is to give us the other half of the game that feels like its missing.

Make managing our colonists a far bigger issue.
Start, by dramatically reducing the birth rate, so that onwship of 12 colonists wont fill a whole base with bunny like Marsborn, having a self sustining population should be an enormous releif. Earthborn should be retiring and going back to earth, people shoulld be dying of things we didnt expect, developing enough culture and comunity to sustain children shoudnt be a matter of 'they have a bar, med station, gym and cassino, sexxy times are now'. The populations of mars should feel precarious, and losses should be felt.

Then, give us more to do and more we need them for! Populations on Mars should get more and more demanding concitions should change, from something like the Antaric reserch station, to a colonial homestead, to a frontear town, to a [potentially] thriving city. We should have to adapt to those changing needs and prepair for the future, as requrments and expectaions change.

We should be watching internal and external politics, our sponsors should do more than give us a score card. Instead think of say the first phase of Tropico 5, with the Crown making demands, your gaining favour, possibly even other sponosrs looking to let legal juristicton over the colony. Keep Mars in the public view and get more aplicants and more population (which should alwyas be a very scarce resorce), but more attention means more demands in turn. Or play quietkeep things small, enjoy relitave freedom, but reduced support.

Internally, theres a golden opertunity for some great internal tensions between Earth and Mars Born, between going with the sponsors demands, or your own needs. But that's not enough. Faction A thinks you should concentrate on getting populatin up, faction B is saying that woumenwill all strike if reduced to baby factories. Factons C and D are fighting about whether mining gains should be used by the colony, oe exported back to the home world, faction E really wants to see another sponsor take over the facualty and you need to get that dealt with without becoming so repressave your own present sponsor intervenes...

Then you have issues like what to do with criminals when all your resorces are so tightly constrained?

I mean the human element has so much potential to add this whole extra layer of depth and complexity, especialy with the 1 sol/1 year timescales, and thats what I thought we were getting because right now, it feels like the game stops right when it should just be getting started. With imediate needs adressed, and positive upkeep beating flows of all resorces theres no pressure and no reason to do anything else but sit tight and coast till you get the mystery.

 

[Zinegata]

No outsourcing makes the Church hilariously difficult until you've surveyed most of the map. Game over, restart if you don't get enough research to get at least Explorer AI and EMI within 3-4 anomalies on mountainous maps.

Make your first Dome a research and mining Dome. One wedge for services, one wedge for three research centers, and four wedges of basic housing will provide enough labor to fully man all the research centers and the mine.

This setup will produce 1,500 research or so, plus money to fund resupply of components.

There is again no need to aim for self sufficiency at the start. Your economy simply won't have enough work force to make it efficient:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/surviving-mars-a-primer.1083069/

 

[Bronzewing]

1 wedge probably isn't enough, maybe try 2 appartments instead of 4 living quarters? As long as the services include an infirmary they should still be comfortable enough to breed.
Later on add an arcology spire, demolish one appartment and add a farm for the Biome engineering comfort buff.

 

[Zinegata]

1 wedge probably isn't enough, maybe try 2 appartments instead of 4 living quarters?

Apartments are frankly a bad option in the early game as they require too much power. One wedge of services is fine especially since New Ark has Religious colonists anyway and morale/services is less of an issue.

 

[Bronzewing]

I've never had an issue building appartments in my first dome. adding a few more solar panels isn't really a big ask, and when space is at a premium high density housing is the way to go.

 

[Zinegata]

I've never had an issue building appartments in my first dome. adding 1-2 more solar panels isn't really a big ask, and when space is at a premium high density housing is the way to go.

It is a big ask for the Church and other poorer sponsors. You need a battery (which cost Polymers) in addition to solar panels, or wind which will cost machine parts. That means more stuff to import off-world and more cash flowing out of your budget. The apartments themselves also need polymers which must be imported. Besides, this is the early game. Why would you have a space issue when the map is still wide open?

Indeed, I am very tempted to say that basic housing is better overall even in the late game unless you're just running after the highest possible population. The cost to build two Domes full of housing isn't terribly far from one Dome full of Apartments, but power-wise that one Apartment Dome will require nearly double those two Domes. Even the additional water and oxygen requirement is paltry compared the 30 something extra power needed.

 

[Bronzewing]

I've not actually tried the church yet, but I've done apaprtments with Paradox as my sponsor. I think what I did that time was build 1 living quarters for the founders, then bring in a polymer factory ready for wave 2 so I could convert to appartments. I like being able to get a farm in a basic dome after the founder period and still have enough people left over to do something useful.
The other issue is if you build the same number of people into 2 domes instead of 1 you have to double up on the services since you can't share these between domes.

 

[KDubya]

My first game was a Russia Ecologist game where i avoided wind power at the start to limit machine parts, brought a polymer plant to self produce and built apartments and Hanging Gardens in first and all subsequent domes. This was at 33N 118E like 310% or so.

It used 40 polymer I think for dome + Hanging Garden + 2 apartments. Had diner, grocer, infirmary, 2 farms, research station and security station (staffed during disasters). Housed 48 people with a 65 comfort. Had plenty of employees to triple shift everything inside dome and double shift outside polymer factory (which was shared with second dome to allow for fluctuating employment needs).

The high comfort had a high birth rate which helped expand the colony into the second dome where I had a few nurseries, a school and university to go with apartments and the grocer, diner, infirmary and another Hanging Garden.

It seemed to work pretty well but I did have Extractor AI very early (before first dome built) so that may have really skewed my game. With enough water and power you can make all the polymer you want.

 

[Lt Loco]

Make your first Dome a research and mining Dome. One wedge for services, one wedge for three research centers, and four wedges of basic housing will provide enough labor to fully man all the research centers and the mine.

This setup will produce 1,500 research or so, plus money to fund resupply of components.

There is again no need to aim for self sufficiency at the start. Your economy simply won't have enough work force to make it efficient:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/surviving-mars-a-primer.1083069/

That's an interesting idea. It sounds nice, though I'm running mods to increase the difficulty that would make that a delicate balancing act that I'd prefer to avoid by just getting a fungus farm for cheap and easy food production without taking up any dome space.

Specifically, I'm running:
"Increase requirement for birth by 25% (Still in testing)" - raises the comfort requirement by 25 for children. It makes getting kids and a stable population more of a strain. Art workshop - Diner - Infirmary is my standard founder comfort wedge due to the increased comfort needs.
"Longer Rocket Travel Time (+100%)" - does what it says on the tin. Makes it so emergency shipments can be intercepted by dust storms and requires me to plan more out rather than just assuming I can get materials when I need them.

That makes my founders workload:
1) Diner, 2 colonists
2) Infirmary, 2 medics
3) Art Workshop, 2 colonists
4) Fungus Farm, 2-3 colonists
5) R.M. Mine, 3-4 colonists

Second colonist load includes my scientists, more botanists, and more miners.