EMPEROR OF THE FADING SUNS
NOVA
The New Start
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EMPEROR OF THE FADING SUNS NOVA The New Start |
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Last updated: March 8, 2000
Latest changes marked in red
There are many, many features of EFS which are inadequately described in the manual, or which work differently from how they're described in the manual. This is a list of all the things I've discovered about the game. I don't guarantee that everything in this list is correct. If you have any evidence that something I've said is wrong, please let me know. The list follows the structure of the manual.
The version of EFS described here is 1.4. Except where otherwise stated, I am referring to standard EFS, but I have noted some points where Nova is different.
Thanks to Tom Chick for a few bits that I stole from his FAQ.
Random: Stigmata always remains the same too.
You get 4, 3, 2 and 1 free traits at Beginner, Easy, Average and Difficult levels respectively (not 5, 4, 3 and 2 as stated in the manual). [In Nova, you don't get any free traits, unless you select Easy level, in which case you can have as many free traits as you like.]
The number of free traits and the score multipliers are the only differences between the levels. So Ridiculous is not really much harder than Beginner.
BUG: Computer players are often given the wrong name for their portrait, so they can have a male portrait with a female name!
Noblesse Oblige: Increases your city and unit loyalty by 10 points.
Rule of Law: Ditto.
Charismatic Leadership: Only affects unit loyalty, not city loyalty. BUG: The Charismatic Leadership bonus is not correctly added or removed from units under some circumstances. For example, when a unit leaves a planet where you have a Noble in the Palace, it doesn't lose the bonus.
Administration. Adds 10% to the total of your tax income (as opposed to increasing your tax rate by 10 points).
Internal Security Apparatus: You can't have a rebellion unless unit loyalty is below 25%, so this doesn't really matter.
Battlemaster: The noble gets the bonus, as well as the units with him.
BUG: When the Advisor sends you messages about the benefits you've received for Noble Scholars and Enlightened Nobility, he gets the numbers wrong.
Despotism: Reduces food production by 10%. (Note: the manual and the trait screen describe this trait wrongly.)
Inbreeding: You still can't have a rebellion unless unit loyalty is below 25%.
Insanity: Reduces production of resources in each city by 5%. This is rounded in your favour, so that, for example, a Fusorium producing 10 Monopols per turn will not be affected. Does not affect research.
Tyranny: Decreases unit loyalty but not city loyalty.
Spendthrift: Lose 10% on buying and selling. In other words, it's the same as Disdains Trade.
When the resource income of a harvesting city is displayed (in the Stack Screen or the City Info Screen), the figures do not allow for resources gained or lost due to Noble Scholars, Despotism or Insanity. However, the totals displayed when you right-click on a box in the Warehouse Bar (at the bottom of the screen) do allow for these gains and losses.
BUG: When you reassign a lab during your turn (including labs which were previously researching nothing), you sometimes find that the lab contributes nothing to the new tech for the current turn, even if it still has points available. Furthermore, you may find that you lose any points that other labs have already spent on the new tech! It seems that these problems do not occur if you reassign a lab when prompted at the start of your turn. Therefore it's not a good idea, when prompted, to switch a lab to researching nothing, thinking that you will reassign it later in the turn when you've thought more about what you need to research.
BUG: When a you build a new lab, you will not be prompted to assign it. Furthermore, it will not show up in the "# Labs" researching Nothing. You must remember to assign it during a turn, otherwise it will never research anything! Because of the bug mentioned above, it's a good idea to avoid assigning it to a tech that you've already partially researched, in case you lose the points you've already spent.
This section of the manual is complete rubbish. The Inquisitors do not fly around the galaxy looking for forbidden labs. They automatically know where your labs are and whether you are researching a proscribed tech.
As soon as you start researching a proscribed tech, the Inquisitors will threaten you and dispatch a force to attack you. The turn after the Church fleet arrives at your planet, the Inquisitors will land and attack your lab(s), if you are still researching the tech or have completed it. It makes no difference which labs are researching the proscribed tech. As long as you possess or are researching a proscribed tech, any of your labs is liable to be attacked.
If the lab which the Inquisitors attack is defended, then the Church declares war on you. If the lab is empty, the Inquisitors destroy it, but you remain at peace. You don't lose the proscribed technologies unless all of your labs are destroyed. In that case, you lose all your technologies, as you can no longer pay their maintenance cost.
Providing you're not yet at war with the Church, you can strike all your proscribed techs (and stop researching any in progress), and the Inquisitors won't attack you. However, the Church fleet may still complete its journey to your planet and remain in orbit there. Once you're at war with the Church, the only way to end the war is through the Church diplomacy screen.
The Church will not attack anything other than your labs unless it is at war with you, in which case it will also attack your spaceships, bombard your ground units from space, and make ground attacks on any forces you have on Holy Terra. I believe the Church never sends ground forces other than Inquisitors away from Holy Terra.
If your lab is completely surrounded by units and/or other cities, the Inquisitors will not attack it. They are not willing to attack other cities or units in order to reach the lab.
BUG: The Inquisitors do not attack labs on Holy Terra!
BUG: If a lab is captured or destroyed while researching a proscribed tech, you don't lose the research points you've already spent on the tech. So the Inquisitors think you're still researching it, even if you're not, and will carry on attacking your other labs. As far as I can see, the only way to get the Inquisitors to leave you alone in this situation is to finish researching the tech and then strike it. (You can't strike a partially researched tech.) Note: this bug has probably been fixed in version 1.4; but I'm not sure.
Load: BUG: The Load Saved Game dialogue box only displays files which have the Archive attribute set. If you backup your files using a program that clears this attribute, you will be unable to load the files afterwards. You can reset the Archive attribute using the Properties option in the Windows Explorer file context menu.
Send Message: BUG: If you use the 5th line of the message box, some or all of that line may be lost. To be on the safe side, only use 4 lines.
Read Contracts: This option lets you review any diplomatic offers that were made to you this turn, and which you haven't yet responded to. It doesn't let you see any contracts which have been accepted but not yet fulfilled. For example, there's no way to check whether you have already promised your votes to someone.
Version 1.2 of EFS added a City Info display to the Archives Menu. This display lists all your cities, sorted by Unit Production, City Type or Planet. Click on a column header to change the sort criterion. The resource production of the selected city is shown below. If a Lab is selected, then a Tech button appears, which brings up the Tech display for that Lab.
Changing the tax rate, tithe skim and unit pay. As well as dragging the sliders, you can click on the arrows at the ends of the bars (to change the rates by 1% per click), or click inside the bars (to change the rates by 10% per click). You can ignore the red/green hearts by the bars. These only serve to indicate the starting rates.
Tax: Initial rate 10% [12% in Nova]. Maximum rate: 99%.
Tithe Skim: Initial rate 0%. Maximum: 99%.
Unit Pay: Initial rate 100% (i.e. the full maintenance costs shown in the unit chart). Maximum: 199%.
Tax, Tithe Skim, Unit Pay and Debt are received/paid at the end of each turn. The Total shown is the amount you will be left with at the end of your turn. (Total = Tax + Tithe Skim - Unit Pay + Bank - Debt.) If the Total is less than zero, the game will not let you end your turn. You will have to raise additional money or reduce your Unit Pay before you can end your turn. The Total does not take into account the maintenance cost of your labs (500 Fb per lab per turn), which is paid at the start of the turn, so make sure you leave yourself with enough money, if you want your labs to operate next turn.
The Church screen does not show the current relations between each Sect and each House. The red heart symbols never change.
There are seven types of planet, not six: Normal, Barren, Desert, Jungle, Frozen, Megacity and Ocean. However, Normal, Desert and Ocean planets all contain the some terrain types, but in different quantities. To put it another way, Desert and Ocean are sub-types of Normal.
Each planet type uses different terrain symbols. For a key to all the symbols, see the Harvest Chart.
You can build cities on Megacity planets other than Byzantium II.
BUG: There is a row of hexes at the bottom of each planet map which does not appear on the Planet Display. However, you can see it on the complete Planet Map (the one you see when you right-click on the Corner Map), and you can move units into these hexes by using the cursor keys on your keyboard. You can even build cities there.
See the Terrain Costs Chart for the movement costs of each terrain type. Basically, road and city hexes cost 1 movement point to enter. Clear hexes (grass, desert and tundra) cost 2 points. Others cost more. Air and naval units only pay 1 point per hex. Movement costs for some terrain types are variable, depending on the type of unit moving (foot, tread, etc). If two types of unit are moving together, they pay the higher of the two costs. This means that a mixed stack (say, foot and tread) may move faster if you move the foot units separately from the tread units. A unit can always move at least one hex per turn, even if the cost to enter the hex exceeds its movement allowance. BUG: A stack containing units of two different movement types may be unable to move even one hex in some terrain. In this case, you need to move the two types of unit separately.
The references to roads in this section of the manual are misleading. All ground units get the same benefit from roads: they only pay 1 point per hex, instead of 2 or more. They get this benefit whenever they enter a road hex, regardless of whether they are moving along the road. Note that cities (except Ruins and Monasteries) automatically contain a road.
Hover units aren't mentioned in this section of the manual. They are pretty much the same as other ground units in standard EFS. They just move a bit faster. [In Nova, they can move on sea as well as land.]
Air units must begin or end each turn in a city to refuel. Otherwise, they run out of fuel and crash. BUG: An air unit won't run out of fuel while it's on a naval carrier or while being transported by a naval or space transport, but it may not get refuelled either. To be on the safe side, when moving an air unit away from a carrier or transport, make sure it ends its turn in a city, carrier or transport.
Naval units can enter ocean hexes and friendly coastal city hexes . A Naval Transport with a passenger can capture an unoccupied enemy coastal city, i.e. one which does not contain even non-combat units. Other naval units can never capture cities, though they can attack them. Naval units may move from one coastal city hex to another, even across an all-land hex-side. You can use this ability to build a "canal" across an isthmus up to 2 hexes in width. Naval units in city hexes participate in combat just as if they were at sea.
Naval Carriers are a bit odd. They don't transport units in the way that Naval Transports do. If you put an air unit on a carrier and then move the carrier, the air unit gets left behind! To make carriers work properly, you need to select the carrier and the air unit, and move them together.
Ground units can be located in an ocean hex if there's an off-shore city (Well or Shield) there. BUG: A ground unit can move or attack from a coastal hex to an adjacent off-shore city, but it cannot move from an off-shore city to an adjacent coastal hex.
As a result of certain bugs, mentioned elsewhere, it's possible to end up with a ground unit at sea in a hex without a transport (just floating happily on its own).
Ocean hexes on Barren planets are a bit odd. They represent dried-up ocean beds, so ground units can move there, and naval units can't. However:-
1. Spaceships cannot land there.
2. The only cities you can build there are Wells and Shields.
3. You can't build roads there.
4. You can build naval units on the coast of a barren ocean, but they won't be able to move!
Spaceships can land in unoccupied enemy cities and in hexes containing only enemy non-combat units. They can cannot land in off-shore cities (friendly or enemy), and they cannot land in a hex containing an enemy spaceship or an enemy city on Byzantium when combat is prohibited there. BUG: Spaceships cannot land in a delta hex, unless it contains a road or city.
BUG: For ground, air and naval units, spotting does not work as described in the manual. Basically, in standard EFS it hardly works at all, and you rarely have any difficulty seeing enemy units, even if they have high camo. [In Nova, this has been fixed, and spotting works quite nicely.]
The distance at which the "mist is cleared" from terrain is: (spot / 2) – 1 (rounded down, minimum 1). So a Scout Tank, with spot 7, can clear the mist at a distance of (7/2) – 1 = 2 hexes. This is also the maximum range at which the Scout Tank can possibly spot an enemy unit, but it won't necessarily be able to spot a unit within this range, except at the beginning of the game, when it will automatically spot any enemy units within this range.
Exception: cargo pods (which have a spot value of 0) have no spotting ability whatsoever.
In case you want to know all the gory details of how spotting works, here they are:
Each unit has a random number between +2 and -2 added to its camo at the start of the game, or when it is built. (This is the only thing about spotting in the manual which is actually correct!) The number has an equal (20%) chance of being -2, -1, 0, +1 or +2. This is the only random element in spotting. There is no random element at the time that spotting is resolved.
When spotting is resolved, the modified camo value is multiplied by a terrain coefficient from unitspot.dat, to give what I call the "Final Camo". The terrain coefficient depends on the terrain type, the planet type and the movement type (of the unit being spotted). The "Final Camo" is compared with a "Final Spotting" value:
Final Spotting = (2 x Spot) – (4 x Range),
where "Spot" is the basic spotting value of the spotting unit (as defined in unit.dat), and "Range" is as you would expect (an adjacent unit is at range 1, etc). If Final Spotting is greater than or equal to Final Camo, the unit is successfully spotted.
Furthermore, each unit has a "Maximum Spotting Range", which is the maximum distance at which it can ever spot (regardless of camo) and is also the distance at which the "mist is cleared" from terrain:
Maximum Spotting Range = (Spot / 2) – 1 (rounded down, minimum 1).
Units which begin the game within the Maximum Spotting Range of an enemy unit are automatically spotted (regardless of camo).
Here's another way of calculating Final Spotting. Any unit with an even spotting value has a Final Spotting of 4 at its Maximum Spotting Range. Any unit with an odd spotting value has a Final Spotting of 6 at its Maximum Spotting Range. For each hex closer it is to the target, add 4 to Final Spotting.
HOWEVER (and this is where the bug lies) there is a problem with additional terrain layers. Each hex has a base terrain layer (ocean, grass, arid grass, desert, tundra or ice) and possibly one or more additional terrain layers (trees, mountains, hills, river, delta, road and city). The camo value is multiplied by the terrain coefficient for the base terrain layer and by the coefficients for the additional layers (if any). But, each time it multiplies by one of these additional terrain coefficients, the program seems to divide by 2. [In Nova, we've adjusted for this.] In addition, the coefficients for cities ("structures") seem to have no effect at all. [Not much we could do about that.]
For spaceships, spotting sometimes works as described in the manual, but often doesn't. In theory, it should not be possible to see Stealth Ships until they're involved in combat. In practice, they can frequently be seen anyway, so they are not very useful. [In Nova, Stealth Ships have a camo of 100, which seems to work - they can only be spotted when involved in combat.]
Units being transported as cargo can use their spotting ability. [In Nova, Spies on board Naval Transports are very useful for hunting down enemy submarines.]
Units are automatically spotted when they're involved in combat (but units which started the combat unspotted receive a +3 agility bonus for the duration of the current combat). If you move units into a hex containing only unspotted enemy units, you'll see the message "Ambush!". If you move units into a hex containing only unspotted neutral units, you'll be warned and given an opportunity to cancel the attack.
Spotting is on a House-by-House basis, so a unit spotted by one House will not necessarily be spotted by other Houses. Once spotted, a unit remains visible to the spotting House until it moves, no matter how many turns this is, and regardless of whether that House still has a unit nearby. [Note: since units cease to be spotted when they move, a Stealth Ship can attack and then jump to another planet, where it will no longer be spotted.]
Although you can't unload units in space (other than Space Fighters and Torpedo Bombers), you can drag them from one transport to another. This is a very useful feature, as it lets you transport cargo over several jump routes in a single turn, using a chain of transports.
Space Fighters and Torpedo Bombers can be unloaded from a transport in space, and then attack in the same turn. This makes Freighters and Bulk Haulers almost as good as Space Carriers. The advantages of Carriers are:
1. You don't have to remember to unload them each turn, just in case someone attacks you, because the carried ships can fight while loaded.
2. Space Fighters and Torpedo Bombers which are loaded on a Carrier get the +3 agility bonus for starting combat unspotted (but only in the first combat of each turn).
[In Nova, Carriers are also much tougher in space combat, but they have a lower movement allowance than other space transports.]
The manual describes loading units by moving them into the hex containing the Naval Transport. In fact, there are three exceptions:-
1. Units can only be loaded/unloaded at an off-shore city if the transport is in the same hex
2. When a transport is in a city hex, units can be loaded/unloaded in the same hex. If a transportable unit moves into a city hex containing a transport, it will automatically be loaded (beware!)
3. You can drag units from one transport to another in the same hex at sea.
When a unit moves onto a transport in an adjacent hex, it consumes all its remaining movement points. When a unit is loaded onto a transport in the same hex (as described above), it retains its remaining movement points. A unit which begins its turn on board a transport regains all its movement points. Unloading from a transport doesn't cost a unit any movement points, and the unit may then continue moving with any movement points it still has. The transport doesn't pay any movement points to unload its cargo into an adjacent hex, but it can't do so if it has no movement points left.
When a transport unloads its cargo into an adjacent hex, it must unload all its cargo. If you want to unload some units but not others, that's tough. Of course, if the units have any movement points left, you can reload some of them immediately, but they will then lose their remaining movement points.
You can't unload from a Naval Transport into an enemy-occupied hex (even if it only contains non-combat units). In standard EFS, there is no way to make amphibious assaults. [In Nova, you can use hover units for this purpose.]
Health: Units are healed at the rate of 12 points (%) per turn in a city, and 2 points otherwise. Cities are healed at the rate of 8 points per turn.
Disband Button: When you disband a unit, you receive resources equal to 75% of the unit's construction cost, rounded down [only 50% in Nova]. If the disbanded unit had a required input unit (for example, an Officer is required as input when you build a Spy [but not in Nova]), you get back the input unit. This input unit retains the health and experience level of the disbanded unit, but has its full movement allowance (regardless of movement points already expended by the disbanded unit).
Disbanding a cargo pod destroys the resources; you get nothing in return.
You cannot disband Nobles, Blademasters, Scepters and Relics. BUG: There is a bug which can be exploited to disband these units in a roundabout way.
You cannot disband units which are on board a transport, or any units in space.
You can only disband a naval unit at an off-shore city.
Building a city does not require any movement points. An Engineer can build a city even if it has no movement points left. Harvesting (resource gathering) cities may be placed exactly 5 hexes apart (with 4 intervening hexes). A newly built city starts at 50% health. Wells and Shields are the only cities that can be built in ocean hexes. BUG: You can't build a city in a delta hex, unless you build a road there first.
Razing a city consumes all the Engineer's remaining movement points. You can't raze an off-shore Well or Shield.
Building a road costs no movement points, and has no other costs associated with it. City hexes automatically contain roads, and, if you raze the city, the road remains. There is no way to destroy a road, as far as I know.
To see exactly how many resources each harvesting city (Farm, Arborium, Mine and Well) produces, refer to the Harvest Chart. If you can't be bothered with the details, here's a rough guide:-
Farms are best in rivers, grass and ocean. They produce nothing on Barren planets. On Jungle planets, food production is relatively low in all terrains, so it doesn't make much difference where you put a Farm, unless it's near a fertile hex.
Arboriums are good in any flat terrain. They are only poor in hills and mountains. On average, Arboriums produce about twice as much food as Farms, though this depends a lot on the terrain. Once you've developed the necessary technology for Arboriums, there is no longer any point in building Farms. Arboriums do not produce more exotica than Farms
Mines produce metal equally well in mountains and ocean, and hardly any anywhere else. A small island is a very good place for mining metal. Mines on Barren planets produce massive amounts of trace [somewhat less in Nova]. On other planets, the only good source of trace is trace markers, though you can mine small amounts of trace from desert, tundra and swamp.
Wells only produce a decent amount of energy in the desert or where there's an energy marker. They produce small amounts from trees and ocean.
BUG: Forts (and other cities) do not give a defense bonus. To be precise, they give an equal defense bonus to both sides in a battle, which effectively cancels out.
Electronics are not critical to building units with high spotting skills. Trackers have good spotting skills, and they use no electronics (in standard EFS).
Biochems do not bring in top dollar in standard EFS. They are actually priced too low. The most profitable resources to produce for sale are monopols. [In Nova, the prices of resources have been changed to bring them in line with the production costs.]
Church: Tithe is not collected from units, but from cities.
Palace: Only provides increased loyalty when manned by a Noble if you've selected the Charismatic Leadership trait.
Agora: Version 1.4 introduced a new algorithm for varying the prices of resources at Agoras. This algorithm only works if Universal Warehouse is On. Since I dislike the new algorithm, I recommend that you play with Universal Warehouse Off, which means that prices do not change at all. For this reason, I won't attempt to describe the new algorithm here.
BUG: If you buy resources from an Agora and you have a Naval Transport in an adjacent ocean hex, the cargo pod is placed in that hex. Unfortunately, it is not placed on board the transport. You can load it onto the transport if you wish, but, if you choose not to (or forget), it will be left floating in the hex on its own.
A city's resource production is equal to its maximum production multiplied by its health % and its loyalty %, rounded down. (Exception: a Cyclotron's production is rounded up, so it always produces one singularity.) The maximum production for a harvesting city (Farm, Arborium, Mine or Well) is found by adding the harvest for each hex within two hexes of the city. See the Harvest Chart. The maximum production for a processing city (electronics, chemicals, etc.) is fixed. For example, for Electronics it is 10 [20 in Nova].
Cities close to the edge of a map seem to harvest more resources than they should. Perhaps this is to compensate for the fact that they don't have as many hexes within their range. I haven't been able to work out how their production is calculated, but it's worth noting that, in general, building cities close to the edge of the map is advantageous.
BUG: Resource markers (Fertile, Exotica, etc) on random planets are ignored until the game had been saved and reloaded once. Of course, this bug has no effect on PBEM games, as players have to save and load after each player's turn.
If a processing city (electronics, chemicals, etc.) is operating at less than 100% health and loyalty, it still consumes 100% of its input requirements. For example, an electronics plant at 50% health still consumes 10 energy and 5 trace, even though it only produces 5 electronics (instead of its maximum 10).
If a processing city does not have sufficient input resources available (for example you have an electronics plant, but you have less than 10 energy), then the city doesn't operate at all. It neither consumes nor produces resources, and a message is displayed to tell you about it. With the exception of this situation, processing cities always operate and cannot be switched off to avoid consuming resources.
At the start of your turn, cities do their production one by one. So you may find that a city does not have its required input resources available because the city which produces those resources has not yet produced.
If you cancel production of a unit, you get back all the resources you spent on it. These resources appear at the production city, not the location they originally came from.
Some units require an input unit. For example, production of a Spy requires an Officer [but not in Nova]. To start producing a Spy, you must have an Officer present in the city where production is to take place. As soon as you begin production, the Officer disappears. If you cancel production, or disband the Spy, you receive the Officer back again. The Spy starts with 100% health and Green experience level, regardless of the status of the Officer.
Peasants are a relic of an earlier, pre-release version of the game. They are no longer relevant. (They are simply represented by the health % of cities.)
Spies (including Assassins and Doppelgangers) have 2 special abilities:-
The Advisor says that Spies appear as "neutral units" to enemies. This is not true.
Blademasters perform all the same functions as Nobles. They just have better combat ability.
Each city has a notional income of 100 Fb for each 10% health. So the maximum income for a city is 1000 Fb. This income is multiplied by the current tax rate to obtain the amount of tax you receive from that city. The starting tax rate in standard EFS is 10% [12% in Nova], so at the start of the game, with your cities at 100% health, you are receiving 100 Fb tax per city. You only receive taxes from cities on planets where you control the Palace. Contrary to what the Advisor says, you do not require a Noble in the Palace in order to collect taxes.
The tithe in standard EFS is 10% of city income [2% in Nova], i.e. 100 Fb for each city at full health. The tithe skim (what you take) is 0%–99% of this. You only receive tithe skim from cities on planets where you control the Church.
Increasing the tithe skim seems to have little or no effect on the Church's attitude towards you. You might as well raise it to the maximum (99%).
Unit pay starts at 100% (i.e. you're paying the full maintenance costs shown in the unit chart).
Cities rebel when their city loyalty is below 25%.
Units only have a chance of rebelling when their unit loyalty is below 25%. Unless you are foolish enough to reduce your unit pay very low, the only time this will happen is when you capture rebel units, which sometimes have 0% loyalty. Units in space never rebel.
Taxes only affect the loyalty of your cities. Unit pay only affects the loyalty of your units.
Sects have very little effect on the game. You might as well ignore them.
Excommunication reduces your city loyalty by 30 and lasts for 6 turns. It has no effect on unit loyalty.
Plague. The plague is still a bit of a mystery, but here are a few things I've been able to discover.
When a Plague Bomb is set off, all units and cities within a five-hex radius are marked with a yellow asterisk (*), but they do not suffer the plague's effects yet. At the end of each turn, a plague check is made for each such unit/city, with the following possible results:
(a) Cured: the asterisk is removed.
(b) No change: the yellow asterisk remains. The unit/city takes no damage but continues to make a plague check each turn.
(c) Develops the plague: the unit/city is marked with a red asterisk. It can never be cured and will take damage from the plague at the start of every future turn.
The probability of passing the plague check depends on the health of the unit, the number of Hospitals you have on the planet and whether you have the Cure for Necrosis technology. I can't give any reliable figures. There appears to be some upper limit to the number of Hospitals you can benefit from (or maybe it's a case of diminishing returns), because I found that, without Cure for Necrosis, cities and units at 100% health can catch the plague even if you have 40 Hospitals on the planet. With Cure For Necrosis, a single Hospital is enough to prevent units and cities with 100% health from catching the plague. However, even with Cure For Necrosis and 40 Hospitals, units and cities with lower health can catch the plague.
The amount of damage suffered by infected units and cities is random. The damage taken by units seems to be compounded by the number of units in the stack, so units in big stacks die very quickly. A single infected unit in a city tends to recover health faster than it loses it, and so can usually survive for a long time, or even indefinitely. Infected cities tend to recover health faster than they lose it, especially if they were at full health when they caught the plague, so they can survive for a long time, or even indefinitely.
Cities with red plague status can infect other cities and units within 5 hexes. The plague can also spread from units to other units and cities (contrary to what I've claimed previously), but only in certain situations. There's something peculiar going on here.
Scepters, Relics and cargo pods are immune to the plague. The Symbiots, and possibly some other non-player factions, seem to be immune to the plague. You can't see the plague status of other factions' units.
Starvation. All cities and most (but not all) units require food. If you have insufficient food available, those units and cities which don't receive food will begin to starve. Starving units and cities are marked with an exclamation mark (!), and lose health each turn. A starving unit loses 20 health per turn (but regains 12 or 2 depending on whether it's in a city or not). A starving city loses about half its health each turn (but regains 8), and will stabilise at about 10-15% health (if the Plague is switched off). With the Plague option switched on, a starving unit or city with health below 25% must make a plague check - it will probably catch the plague and die very quickly.
The colours of the rotating planet symbols have no significance. They are not related to the planet types.
BUG: Sometimes, a stack in an orbit square disappears from view. To bring it back, just right-click on any other stack.
PTS Units: Your PTS units will only fire on a ship if you are already at war with the ship's owner. You never receive a combat report to tell you that your PTS units have fired.
In an Assault, both sides have their strength rating increased by 20%. Their armor rating is not affected.
BUG: The Feint order has no effect. (It's the same as Normal.)
Xenobiology Bonuses: If you possess Barren, Frozen or Jungle Environment technology, your units receive +2 agility on that type of planet. (Not +2 accuracy as stated in the manual.)
Vau and Symbiot Bonuses: If you possess Vau or Symbiot Psychology, your units receive +20% strength when fighting the Vau or Symbiots respectively. [In Nova, Symbiot Psychology has been renamed Symbiot Physiology.]
Units which have just defended are not automatically spotted for the rest of the turn. After a defending unit retreats, it is rechecked for spotting, and so may disappear from the map.
Some of the steps listed in this section of the manual are wrong:-
3. Each unit attacks several times per phase. The number of times depends on the phase, as shown below. Attacks are effectively simultaneously: both sides make their first attack and damage is inflicted; then both sides make their second attack; and so on. A unit will switch targets if it kills its current target and still has attacks remaining.
Underwater: 4 attacks
Indirect: 2 attacks
Air: 2 attacks
Direct: 3 attacks
Close: 4 attacks
Psychic: 2 attacks
Ranged Space: 2 attacks
Direct Space: 3 attacks
Close Space: 4 attacks
5. The manual implies that each defending unit fires back at the attacking unit which fired at it. I think this is untrue. Defending units select their targets independently of what the attacker does.
6. Results are not displayed until the combat is finished.
8. There are no such things as "standing orders". Ignore this step.
9. Checks for rout occur at the end of each phase. Attacking units that rout lose all remaining movement points, except air units, which may return to base or even attack again. Routed defenders that cannot retreat to an adjacent hex are destroyed, not captured.
10. Ground and air combat continue until all units on one side have been eliminated or routed. Do not be misled by the line near the top of the combat report screen, which only mentions each phase once regardless of how many times the phases are repeated. The following types of combat last for one round only (but the attacker may attack again if he has movement points remaining):
(a) Space combat.
(b) Ranged space bombardment.
(c) Any combat in which one side has only naval units.
(d) Any combat in which neither side has ground units (both sides have air and naval only).
Capturing routed units. If ground or air units are routed while defending and then attacked again in the same turn, they are captured, without combat. If routed naval units or spaceships are attacked again in the same turn, they defend normally. Air and naval units cannot capture routed enemy units. Combat units cannot move in the turn they're captured.
At the end of a combat, each unit in the attacking and defending stacks (regardless of whether it participated in the combat) has a chance (about 25%) of being promoted (Green to Expert, or Expert to Elite).
Underwater: Affects only Naval units.
Indirect: Affects ground units (Foot, Wheel, Tread, Hover, Crawler), Landers (on the ground) and Naval units.
Air: Affects only Air units. [Also affects Hover units in Nova.]
Direct: Affects mechanized units (Wheel, Tread, Hover, Crawler), Landers (on the ground) and Naval units. [Also affects Foot units in Nova.]
Close: Affects Foot units and Landers (on the ground). [Also affects mechanized units in Nova.]
Psychic: Affects ground units, Landers (on the ground), Air units and Naval units. Also affects spaceships in orbit, when the psychic unit is loaded on a Space (or Battle) Carrier.
Ranged Space: Affects all units except Foot and Naval.
Direct Space: Affects only spaceships (Space, Jump and Lander units).
Close Space: Affects only spaceships (Space, Jump and Lander units).
Units with lower rank are selected as targets before units with higher rank. Each unit type has its own rank, which represents how close to the front line it stands. Ranks are not shown in the printed unit chart. You can find them in the unit.dat file. [You can also find the ranks for Nova units in the Nova Unit Chart.] Units never attempt to fire at a target type that they cannot affect. Units will not double up against a single target unless there are no more targets available. Once a unit is destroyed, targets are reselected for subsequent attacks in the same phase.
Example: I have 6 foot units in a battle and my opponent has 5. All the units have a Close attack. In the Close Attack Phase, each of his units will be targetted by 1 of mine, except his lowest ranking unit, which will be targetted by 2 of mine. Each of my units will be targetted by 1 of his, except my highest ranking unit, which will not be targetted at all. If one of my units is destroyed in the first attack of the phase (and none of his are destroyed), then my highest ranking unit will be targetted in subsequent attacks of this phase.
Example: I have 5 units in a battle, all of which have an AA attack. My opponent has 2 air units and 2 foot units. In the Air Attack Phase, 3 of my units will attack his higher ranking air unit and 2 will attack his lower ranking air unit. The foot units will be ignored in this phase, regardless of their rank.
Units can only attack into hexes which they are capable of moving into. So naval units can attack into cities, but not into non-city coastal hexes. [Prior to version 1.4, ground units in any coastal hex could attack and be attacked by adjacent naval units.] Attacking costs the same number of movement points as moving into the hex would have done, and units cannot attack if they have insufficient movement points. Attacking units do not automatically enter the defender's hex after eliminating or routing all the defenders, but they may do so by normal movement afterwards if they have sufficient movement points remaining.
Air and naval units cannot capture cities or non-combat units. Exception: a Naval Transport carrying a unit (combat or non-combat) can capture an empty city (even an offshore city), but not one containing non-combat units.
In standard EFS, the only way to capture a one-hex island (or other hex which cannot be attacked overland) containing a non-combat unit is to land a spaceship in it. However, you cannot land a spaceship in an offshore city, in a hex which contains an enemy spaceship on the ground, or in an enemy city on Byzantium while combat there is prohibited. So there is no way to capture such hexes if they cannot be attacked overland. [In Nova, hover units and SEALs can capture such hexes.]
The only type of combat which affects the health of a city is Ranged Space bombardment (space to planet). However, it has no effect on empty cities or cities occupied only by non-combat units. If a city's health is reduced to 0, it's destroyed.
Spaceships on the ground (except for Landers) are treated as non-combat units. They take no part in combat and are captured if all the combat units with them are destroyed or routed. Exceptions: they are affected by Ranged Space Bombardment, and cannot be captured by other spaceships. Unlike ground units, captured spaceships have their full movement allowance available for use in the turn they're captured.
BUG: A land hex containing a Freighter, Bulk Hauler, Space Carrier or Battle Carrier with a unit on board cannot be attacked (except by Ranged Space Bombardment).
Landers do participate in ground combat. They can even attack an adjacent hex (though they can't move into the hex). Landers can't retreat. If routed, they're destroyed.
The following units can participate in space combat while on board an attacking or defending Space Carrier or Battle Carrier:
(a) Transportable spaceships (e.g. Space Fighters and Torpedo Bombers).
(b) Marauder Legions. [In Nova, Marauders are handled very differently, and can only participate in space combat while in their Space form.]
(c) Symbiot Butchers. Note that these cannot take part in space combat when on board a Symbiot Pod Ship. [In Nova, Butchers cannot take part in space combat at all.]
(d) Psychic units (i.e. ones with a Psychic attack). [In Nova, we've greatly increased the PsyDef of spaceships to stop psychic units from dominating space combat.]
Ground units fighting from on board a carrier cannot be targetted by space attacks. They can only be targetted by the ground attacks of other ground units of the above types.
When a carrier is destroyed, its passengers can continue fighting for the remainder of the current combat, but they are then also destroyed (even if they are spaceships).
The manual states that an attack hits if a random number (1-20) is 10 or more. In fact, it's 11 or more. In other words, when the attacker's accuracy equals the target's agility, there is a 50% chance of hitting.
The manual refers to "Hit Point Percentile". What it means is "Health %".
The experience modifier for elite units is 1.2, not 1.5 as stated here.
Damage is determined by the Attack Damage Table, which you can find in file damage.dat. It's an odds-based combat results table. Depending on the odds (attacker's strength to target's armor) and a random number (1-10), the table gives a damage number. This number is subtracted from the target's health. As in most wargames, the odds are always rounded down.
BUG: The health of a unit which has taken damage is often displayed incorrectly in the combat display. A unit sometimes appears to lose health and then regain it. This seems to be just a display glitch. As far as I can tell, the damage is being assigned correctly.
BUG: Damage taken by a unit during a battle does not affect the unit's strength until the end of the battle. But a unit will still be removed from the battle as soon as it has taken 100% damage.
BUG: In effect, 10 points are added to a unit's loyalty when checking for rout. So a unit only needs 90 loyalty to be safe from routing.
Only units which have been damaged check for rout. Once damaged, a unit checks for rout at the end of each remaining phase of the combat. If it fails its rout check, it does not participate in the remaining phases. (It can't attack or be attacked in those phases.)
The leader (Officer or Noble) loyalty bonus applies in space as well as on the ground. BUG: The loyalty bonuses for Officers and Nobles seem to be 1 point lower than stated in the manual (or shown in file efs.ini), i.e. +19 and +29, not +20 and +30 as stated in the manual. [In Nova, the bonuses have been reduced to +10 and +14 respectively.]
When an Officer's or Noble's loyalty bonus saves your units from routing, you get a message "Your units have rallied". BUG: When you view a replay of an enemy attack, you get the message "Your units have rallied" when the enemy's units rally, and the message "Their units have rallied" when your units rally. It's best to read these messages as "Attacker's units have rallied" and "Defender's units have rallied". [This has been fixed in Nova.]
This section is misleading. There is no difference between withdrawing and routing.
You can only offer one contract to each player per turn. BUG: If you send two contracts to the same player in one turn, the first one is lost, without any warning.
You can only offer one technology per contract, and you can only ask for one. BUG: You cannot offer proscribed technologies.
When you offer a player money, the money is immediately deducted from your treasury. If he rejects your offer, the money is refunded. BUG: If you ask for more money than a player has, he can agree to pay you, and you receive the full amount! He just pays all that he has in his treasury, but doesn't go into debt.
BUG: If you ask a player for a planet map that he doesn't have, he can still give it to you!
BUG: You can promise the same Ministry to more than one player. If you're elected Regent, the last player to be promised the Ministry is the one who will receive it. BUG: A player (human or computer) can promise 2 or 3 Ministries to the same House. If the player is then elected Regent, that House gets all the promised Ministries!
BUG: You can promise your votes to 2 or more players in the same turn. Of these players, the one who moves latest in the turn sequence is the one who will actually receive your votes.
Requests and demands for votes always refer to "votes for the next election". However, if such a contract is received during an election year, it really means the current election. If the votes in question have already been cast (or abstained) before the contract is accepted, they will not be affected. For example, you cast your votes at the start of your turn and then receive a contract asking for your votes; you can accept the contract, but it will not alter your votes.
The only effect of an alliance with a human player is that you can see the Budget Area of their House Screen (on your Diplomacy Screen). BUG: The Unit Pay of an allied player is always shown as zero.
The only effect of being at war with a human player is that your PTS units will fire at each other's spaceships whenever they have the chance, and you won't be given a warning if you accidentally attack his units. This means you will be ambushed if you move into a hex where he has unspotted units.
The first election takes place in the year 4965 (the 10th turn of play). A player may vote if he has a Noble on Byzantium or in orbit over Byzantium at the start of his turn.
To win an election for Regent or Emperor, you do not require a majority of votes. You just need to receive more votes than any other player. In the event of a draw, the incumbent Regent continues in office; this is considered an extension of his current term of office, not a new one, so he cannot reassign the Ministries.
You receive one vote for each Scepter you control at the moment you vote. When prompted to vote at the start of your turn, you can click on "Wait" and delay voting until the end of your turn, giving yourself some time to capture more scepters.
Scepters can be lost at sea on board a destroyed Naval Transport.
The Regent doesn't have to appoint Ministers, providing he doesn't select the Byzantium II screen, in which case the Ministers will remain unchanged. If he does select that screen (whether immediately or in any subsequent turn), he is then forced to appoint Ministers before he can leave the screen, and must then appoint Ministers in accordance with any promises he's made. If he has made several conflicting promises, the last one holds, as described under Diplomacy above. Once he has appointed Ministers, he can't change them during his current term of office.
A player can't be assigned a Ministry if he doesn't have a Noble on Byzantium, but a Minister doesn't lose his Ministry if he no longer has a Noble there. When he assigns Ministries, the Regent must assign all three of them, unless there are insufficient eligible players.
The winner of an election can't take up the Regency if he doesn't have a Noble on Byzantium, but a re-elected Regent may remain in office even if he no longer has a Noble there.
Ministry units under your control are distinct from your House units. They cannot stack together, or enter each other's cities. Units built in a Ministry city are Ministry units. Cities built by Ministry Engineers are Ministry cities.
Your House cities can consume Ministry resources (and vice versa). I recommend playing with Universal Warehouse Off, which makes it more difficult to purloin Ministry resources.
You can sell Ministry resources to the League and pocket the money yourself.
Ministry cities and units do not consume food or require pay.
There is no penalty for attacking an Imperial Eye fort before any player has been appointed to command the Eye. You will be told that you are at war with the Eye, but this will have no effect.
If fleets from two Ministries are in orbit about the same planet, they can't attack each other, because they both occupy the same square. Forces of two Ministries are allowed to attack each other on the ground.
BUG: You can go to war with yourself by using your House spaceships to attack your Ministry spaceships (or vice versa).
The Imperial Fleet and Eye don't move their units, build new units or produce resources while these Ministries are vacant. But the Stigmata Garrison does.
BUG: A computer Regent sometimes allocates two Ministries to one player.
After you declare yourself Emperor, an election will occur the next turn. If you win that election, you continue as Regent for another 10 turns. (This is an extension, not a new term of office, so you can't reassign the Ministries.) At the end of those 10 turns, there is another election, and if you win that one too, then you win the game. You must win both these elections (a draw is not sufficient), and you must have a Noble on Byzantium. If you fail to meet these conditions, your claim to the Throne is dropped, i.e. combat on Byzantium II becomes restricted once again. (If you draw, or win without a no Noble on Byzantium, then you continue as a normal Regent, with no claim to the Throne.)
BUG: If you declare yourself Emperor in an election year, that election counts as one of the two elections you need to win after declaring yourself Emperor. Assuming you win that election and the one the following turn, you win the game immediately, without the usual 10 turn delay.
Scoring is only for interest. It doesn't affect the outcome of the game. When the game ends (one player becomes Emperor or all but one are eliminated), the program just announces which player has won. You don't even get to see the final scores.
The following powers produce resources (if they control resource-producing cities) and build new units: League, Church, Symbiots, Stigmata Garrison and all non-vacant Ministries. With the exception of Symbiots, who build only in Hives and pay nothing, these powers normally pay for their builds. However, I have seen them build Spies [and SEALs in Nova] without paying.
BUG: The computer-controlled powers sometimes attack naval units with ranged space bombardment, even though this has no effect. They also sometimes attempt to attack on Byzantium when there is no Emperor, even though this too has no effect.
The second paragraph of this section of the manual is rubbish. The Imperial Guard never does anything. It just remains in place and defends itself. However, the Imperial Guard will use its PTS weapons against you, if you attack it first and an Emperor has been declared.
You can land units on Holy Terra and build cities there. The Church won't react unless you're at war. So it's quite easy to build up forces there and then launch an attack to capture the Church's scepters. The scepters are in a Church in the Middle East. The Church also has a good number of ships on the ground, which you can capture.
The Patriarch can be persuaded to vote for you, to excommunicate a player, and to make peace (if you're at war with the Church). Offering to sign the Holy Writ seems to be very effective persuasion, but you can only sign it once, so you want to keep it for an important moment.
BUG: Technologies that have been proscribed during the game get unproscribed when the game is saved and reloaded (if you exit and restart the program between saving and reloading).
BUG: I've never known the Patriarch to refuse a peace treaty, even if I ask for it the same turn I attacked the Church, or I possess proscribed technologies.
See also The Inquisition.
An agora is replenished whenever a League bulk hauler visits the planet. (Actually, it's replenished on the turn after the bulk hauler arrives at the planet.) When an agora is replenished, 4 types of resource revert to their original quantities (thus they may be increased or decreased). The 4 types will be one of the following groups:
1. Food - Energy - Metal - Trace
2. Trace - Exotica - Chemicals - Biochems
3. Biochems - Electronics - Ceramsteel - Wetware
4. Wetware - Monopols - Gems - Singularities
I think that agoras on Leagueheim are never replenished. Resources frequently disappear from an agora for no apparent reason. So far, I have only noticed energy, electronics and gems disappearing in this way.
The League declares the Third Republic when its warchest reaches a figure somewhere between 300 000 and 500 000. The warchest starts with the same number of Firebirds as the players' treasuries (5000 in standard EFS). The warchest seems to be increased each turn by a random amount in the range 1000-3000. It does not seem to be affected by players trading with the League or taking out a loan. However, when players make loan repayments, the amount of the repayments is added to the warchest. Since I can never get the League to accept any contract (even an offer of money for nothing!), I can't say whether paying money to the League would affect its warchest.
BUG: If you borrow money from the League and refuse to repay it, the League does not take any action against you, not even a trade embargo.
The League will allow you to land on Leagueheim, and won't react unless you're at war. There are a lot of ships in Starports on Leagueheim, which you can capture. The League's scepters are spread out among 5 Agoras.
BUG: Even if the League is at war with you, it will still sell you the resources you need to build a unit, within the Build Screen.
The League's Merchant units have no special role in the game. They're just weak combat units.
Unless attacked, the Vau do not move their units. As far as I can see the Vau do not build new units, except...
BUG: With a Random map, the Vau start building Human units once they are at war.
Since it costs you nothing to sell the Vau a map, you might as well do so at every opportunity. They'll only pay for maps of cities which they don't already know about, so you want to sell that map before anyone else beats you to it.
On the Historical map, Vau cities are located on Vau and Vril-ya. On Vril-ya, they have a lot of ships on the ground, which you can capture. This is really the only reason to attack them.
On a Random map, Vau cities are located on Vau and on one planet adjacent to Vau. In this case, all their ships are in space, and so can't be captured.
BUG: When you attack a Vau unit for the first time, you're not asked if you want to declare war. It happens automatically.
On the Historical map, the Symbiots start on the planets Daishan, Chernobog and Absolution. On a Random map, they start in a cluster of three planets, near to Stigmata. Usually they are bottled in by Stigmata, as on the Historical map, but sometimes they have an additional jump route out of their cluster, which can be painful for anyone on the other end of that jump route.
Rebel cities never produce any resources or build new units.
Most rebel units in cities won't move. This includes all the rebel units you find on randomized planets (on a Random Map). On the Historical Map, most planets have a few mobile rebels, and De Moley has a lot. If you force an immobile unit to retreat out of it's city and don't capture it, it becomes mobile. Rebel units which are found in Ruins are mobile in standard EFS. [But in Nova they're usually immobile, because they include emplaced guns, which have zero movement.] [In a custom galaxy, like Matt Caspermeyer's Spartan galaxy, the rebels may be much more active.]
Rebel units on randomized planets often have a loyalty of 0%. This doesn't seem to effect them until you capture them, and then they rebel. However, after rebelling, their loyalty rises to 75%, so, if you capture them a second time, you can keep them. [The same may also apply to rebels in a custom galaxy.]
Cargo pods, Scepters, Relics and Clergy are non-combat units. [In Nova, Clergy are combat units.] Non-combat units cannot attack. If their stack is attacked, they take no part in the combat, and are captured if all the combat units with them are destroyed or routed. They never retreat. They are not affected by Ranged Space bombardment. Capturing non-combat units costs movement points, just like any other attack.
Clergy have no function in standard EFS. [In Nova, Clergy are combat units.]
These units only fire at ships which are landing or bombarding. They don't fire at ships which are taking off. They don't fire at all unless you are already at war with the owner of the ships. When they fire, the player whose ships are being fired at gets a combat report, but the owner of the PTS units doesn't. A PTS unit can fire at any number of targets in one turn.
BUG: Only two stacks of PTS units will fire at one target, so don't spread your PTS units around too much.
BUG: When a ship with Ranged Space attack lands within range of a PTS unit and is fired on, the ship gets to fire back, even if the PTS unit is protected by a Shield!
You can split a cargo pod, by dragging it to an empty box in the Stack Screen. You can merge two cargo pods containing the same resource, by dragging one onto the other. A cargo pod cannot contain more than 999 resource units. Any resources over 999 are split off into a separate pod. BUG: If you drag a cargo pod onto another unit in the Stack Screen, that unit could temporarily disappear from the screen. Don't worry, it will reappear if you exit the Stack Screen and re-enter it.
Cargo pods cannot enter unexplored hexes.
In order to make use of Relics, you must possess Theurgy technology. Contrary to what the Advisor says, you do not need a Church or Clergy to use a Relic.
Zebulon's Spade: Doubles the production of the city in which it's located. If this is a processing city (such as Electronics), the input requirements are not doubled.
Lamp of Knowledge: Triples the research of the Lab in which it's located.
Cup of Righteous Plenty: Increases tax income by 50% on one planet.
Scythe of Bounty: Increases food production by 25% on one planet.
I haven't tested the following Relics, but inspection of relics.dat suggests that they have the following effects:-
The Prophet's Signet: Adds 30 to the Church's attitude towards you. (For comparison, signing the Holy Writ apparently gives you a one time bonus of 50.)
Hand of St Ignatius: Adds 50% to the armor of units in one stack.
Eye of the Prophet: Adds 8 to the accuracy of units in one stack.
Rod of Holy Smiting: Adds 50% to the firepower of units in one stack.
Mirror of Forgiveness: Adds 25 to the attitude of computer-controlled Houses towards you.
St Amalthea's Lancet: Gives a plague check bonus to units in one stack.
Foot of St Ignatius: Gives a smaller plague check bonus to units (and cities?) on one planet.
A Plague Bomb can only be set off by combat. It's set off whenever it attacks or defends, regardless of the outcome of the combat. The plague affects all units and cities within 5 hexes of the Plague Bomb (if the Plague Bomb is attacking this will be the hex it's attacking from). See the section on Plague for more details.
BUG: If a Plague Bomb survives the combat in which it's set off, it is not removed from the game. This means it can be used again elsewhere!
The standard PC "Print Screen" key doesn't work properly with EFS; the colours come out all wrong. Fortunately, however, there are two other methods of taking images from an EFS game.
1. To get an image of an entire planet map, right-click on the Corner Map of the Planet Display, to bring up the Strategic Planet Map. Then click on the "Save to PCX" button. The image is saved in your main EFS folder. The image doesn't include a hex grid.
2. To take a snapshot of any EFS screen, press the following three keys simultaneously: control, shift, tilde (~). The tilde key is normally the top left key of the main part of the keyboard. (Note: this description applies to US keyboards. On my UK keyboard, the top left key is labelled (¬), but I still use that key.) The snapshot is saved to file Screen.pcx, in your EFS folder. For some unknown reason, snapshots of the Star Map come out with a purple background instead of black.
You can then use an image editor to crop the image and convert it to another format, such as GIF. I use Microsoft Photoeditor, which comse as standard with Win95.
BUG: The program treats resource deposit markers as cities for some purposes:
(a) air units can refuel in these hexes;
(b) you can unload a ground unit in an ocean hex containing a resource marker, and then use this ground unit to attack an adjacent land hex;
(c) you can disband a naval unit in an ocean hex containing a resource marker;
(d) an Engineer can sometimes raze a resource marker;
(e) resource markers can be destroyed by space bombardment.
BUG: When a defending unit is routed, it remains in a routed state until the end of the game-turn. So it could be captured by a later moving player. However, Vau units sometimes remain in a routed state into subsequent game-turns (I haven't been able to work out the details).
BUG: The game sometimes tells you that you've moved all your units when you haven't.