Alpha Centauri 2

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri & Alien Crossfire => The Theory of Everything => Topic started by: JMN4444 on July 03, 2018, 01:18:37 PM

Title: Pacifists and Planet Busters
Post by: JMN4444 on July 03, 2018, 01:18:37 PM

I dunno though, although I did see ;deidre; build one once, I've never actually seen her actually use it at all. AI behavior to others tends to go from Aggressive, Erratic and Pacifist. So I've got one question to ask, has anyone seen a pacifist AI use them? Or better yet, has anyone been ever a victim of a Planet Buster from a Pacifist AI  ::)?

Title: Re: Pacifists and Planet Busters
Post by: bvanevery on July 15, 2018, 05:46:57 PM

Apologies, as you've probably realized by now, I scan forums for new posts, a lot less frequently than I answer existing posts.  That's 'cuz I don't have any forum monitoring for new posts.  Wonder if there's a setting for that?  Yes, there does seem to be, so I've turned it on now.

I've rarely seen a faction toss a nuke at another faction at all.  The last 2 that did so, were the Spartans and the Believers, both Aggressive factions in my mod.  I seriously doubt anyone other than an Aggressive faction will toss a nuke first.  I've seen the Pirates retalliate, and they were a Passive Wealth faction by then.  The Pirates were clearly in the lead, other than myself.

Title: Re: Pacifists and Planet Busters
Post by: JMN4444 on July 16, 2018, 07:28:34 AM

So to sum it all up, it might be possible for a really peaceful faction like ;deidre; to counterattack with Planet Busters once they end up getting hit by one?

Title: Re: Pacifists and Planet Busters
Post by: bvanevery on July 16, 2018, 08:24:47 AM

Not just possible, it has actually happened.  My Pirates are Passive.

Title: Re: Pacifists and Planet Busters
Post by: JMN4444 on July 16, 2018, 08:43:12 AM

Interesting to know. It really does simulate the effect of what would happen if a nuclear war were to break out on Chiron, with the more powerful but passive factions joining in if the situation gets too intense.

Title: Re: Pacifists and Planet Busters
Post by: bvanevery on July 16, 2018, 03:02:03 PM

I didn't even understand what the Aggressive AI was doing at first.  I think it was the Spartans in that game, kept on tossing a nuke at a new faction.  It would never concentrate on overwhelming 1 enemy, it would scatter its efforts across as many enemies as possible.  I think what it was actually trying to do, was rope more enemies into retalliatory violence, so that nukes would be normalized.  If Morgan nukes you back, for instance, then Morgan loses all of his Commerce bonuses.

The goading often works.

I avoided getting a nuke in the face, because I wasn't physically close to the Spartans, and had less of a history of military entanglements with them.  Sparta was definitely nukeing factions it had spent more time fighting.  Their Planet Buster output was slow, so I had time to research anti-missile shielding and Orbital Defense Pods.

Title: Re: Pacifists and Planet Busters
Post by: JMN4444 on July 16, 2018, 04:46:17 PM

There really is some sort of Artificial Brilliance going on here. It feels like as if the AI does taunt the other AI through the means of nuclear fire. It's as if the AI has the capability manipulate the others through different means. And if that's the case, maybe they can also initiate probe teams on other AIs and blame it on the other.

Also, remember that using nukes increases the eco-damage, so Planet will end up going on a rampage once they begin raining hellfire on each other. Say hello to planetspaghetti once that happens.

Title: Re: Pacifists and Planet Busters
Post by: bvanevery on July 16, 2018, 07:23:36 PM

I would enjoy a good drowning more, if I didn't do so much manual terraforming work.  By the time I've got the nukes, I'm usually like really, you want me to ruin my whole empire?

Title: Re: Pacifists and Planet Busters
Post by: JMN4444 on July 17, 2018, 01:32:57 AM

Speaking of drowning, I wonder if the Pirates will be crippled if you launch some tectonic missiles towards them, seeing as the majority of their units are all sea based. In truth, I've never seen the AI use Tectonic or Fungal payloads.

Title: Re: Pacifists and Planet Busters
Post by: bvanevery on July 17, 2018, 08:45:07 AM

For some versions of my mod, I had Tectonic and Fungal missiles as pre-designed units.  But that gave the unit designs without requiring any prototyping, and I didn't like that.  So, I removed them.  I didn't see the AI use them, but I probably never made it long enough into a test game back then, for them to even have a chance at it.

The AI uses the pre-designed Foil Probe Team units.  It's a tradeoff, trying to unlock stuff the AI will use, vs. making prototypes freely available to players.

Title: Re: Pacifists and Planet Busters
Post by: JMN4444 on July 18, 2018, 02:16:01 PM

That's a nice touch though now that the AI can use foil probes as well. Probably it could be possible that the AI will be able to use armored probe teams as well.

Title: Re: Pacifists and Planet Busters
Post by: bvanevery on July 18, 2018, 04:20:47 PM

The problem is any time you give the AI a predefined unit, you're also giving the player a free prototype of whatever it has.  Another problem is I don't think the AI is ever going to update the armor.

Title: Re: Pacifists and Planet Busters
Post by: JMN4444 on July 19, 2018, 12:46:15 AM

Oh right, sometimes the workshop gets filled up some unnecessary units. If we give the probe teams armor, that will fill the workshop even more.

Title: Re: Pacifists and Planet Busters
Post by: bvanevery on July 19, 2018, 02:54:18 AM

I thought making Trance and ECM have a constant cost of 1, instead of a variable cost of 0, 1, or 2, would cut down on the number of units in the Workshop.  It does keep the player from designing yet more units, because there's no expense to be saved from the exercise, but the game still coughs up Trance unit designs and ECM unit designs.  Meanwhile I have the problem of "supply crawler denominations" every game now.  I make them at different expense levels, so that a base with a lot of productivity, completes the most expensive crawler it can in 1 turn and doesn't waste anything.  6 to 9 crawler designs is typical.

A rethinking of unit design would be a good idea for a brand new 4X TBS game.  At least a modern era game wouldn't have a memory constraint, so no need for only 256 designs.

Title: Re: Pacifists and Planet Busters
Post by: JMN4444 on July 20, 2018, 02:34:34 AM

An even better idea would be an improved UI for the workshop. Takes some damned time before I get to the unit I wish to edit. Sometimes, it takes some time to get me to an empty slot.....

Title: Re: Pacifists and Planet Busters
Post by: bvanevery on July 20, 2018, 03:46:19 AM

Well, "empty slots" can go away.  There's no reason a modern computer has to have a finite number of units.  Or, the finite number can be quite large, larger than what anyone will practically use.  32 bits would be overkill for manual specification.  16 bits is probably sufficient.

By the same token, the idea of retiring or obsoleting units doesn't make any modern sense.  That's like the player manually garbage collecting everything.

You might have piles of unit designs and 1 you want to get to though.  I'm thinking you'd have a full screen of unit thumbnails, rather than just the small window in SMAC.  Unit design would definitely be its own entire screen, you wouldn't be looknig at the map.

This is even assuming that designing units, or even having units, is important to a 4X TBS game.  I've often thought that we've been made to count "one by one" about far too many things.  If you want to send 200 units of force into a fight, you don't really want to have to push around 200 units to do it.  You want more abstract notions of controlling force.

Title: Re: Pacifists and Planet Busters
Post by: JMN4444 on July 20, 2018, 05:12:34 PM

That probably makes sense. There had been lots of instances where the workshop gets filled up with unnecessary units that you won't likely use. Especially if the reactors come crashing by..... ECM garrison, Trance garrison,  ECM laser garrison,  Trance Laser garrison ECM 3 Res Garrison....  The list just goes on......

There was also the OBSOLETE curse that happens when you discover a new reactor.  There is an option to disable auto pruning, but it'll be an issue if you don't know about it.

Title: Re: Pacifists and Planet Busters
Post by: bvanevery on July 20, 2018, 05:16:58 PM

I'm totally living with the cramped workshop right now.  My mod puts Fusion engines almost at the end of the tech tree.  This causes a lot of old unit designs to pile up.  On the other hand, I'm not sure that putting it earlier would actually solve much.  Might lessen it a bit, but I don't think that's a tradeoff worth making.