Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on October 18, 2018, 08:42:17 PM
I've started exploring this idea just recently so may not give you a ready solution yet but I'll keep thinking. At the same time I like to share ideas to get a different view on this.
First. My understanding of strategic game is that it 1) gives your plenty of activity options, 2) each option has a distinct impact on a game state (including yours), 3) each option can be useful at some time or another depending on circumstances, 4) you need to monitor current situation and adjust your strategy (change your chosen option set) to be successful and continue to advance.
Some options are mutually exclusive. So you pretty much need to chose your strategy (option set). You cannot get everything at once. To excel you need to analyse the situation, foresee future game development (both yours and opponents) and apply best option set combination (i.e. strategy). That is why they are called strategical after all.
In short, game situation changes every turn and you are juggling lots of variables trying to work out a best balance. Due to large number of variables and their non-linear effect on a game, analysis is quite complex. It is not guaranteed that new player will be able to find a best solution every time. In fact, it takes lots of practice, thinking and hints just to improve your results little by little.
That, in my mind, is a cornerstone of strategy games appeal.
Now. The above paragraph describes a desired strategical game design. It is not easy to achieve such perfection. In game terminology it is called a good balance or variability. Good balance is achieved when there are no superior or inferior strategies. Even better if best strategy as some point would soon need to be revised due to game situation change and replaced with other. In other words, there should be no situation when you run same strategy unmodified for extended period of time and be successful. Otherwise it gets boring.
Sorry for long introduction but I had to go back in history to illustrate my point. Let's look at Civ I early game units: Phalanx (1-2-1) and Legion (3-1-1). They cost the same so their comparative economical effectiveness equals to their combat odds. Let's assume for a moment that player A build Legions to conquer player B who defends with Phalanxes. They raw odds are 3:2 if they encounter each other on flat field unprepared. Legion raw effectiveness is 1.5 bigger. Now let player B be completely prepared. They can place their units in fort fortified or behind a city wall also fortified. That changes odds to 3:6 and 3:9, correspondingly. So even in the flat terrain Legion suddenly becomes twice as less effective. This doesn't come for free, though. Player B need to prepare the defense - build fort or city walls. The idea of overpowering defense over offense is to protect valuable assets: cities and territory. Building few units and capture a well developed but poorly protected city in few turns is undoubtedly the most lucrative investment of time and money. So to keep game in balance game should allow defender to invest less to stop the attack. Now knowing that they will sacrifice a lot of units (= time and resources) player A would think twice if they want to opt for neighbor city capture. Even for economically stronger player grinding through weaker opponent defense may slow down their technological and economical development so much that other rivals would take the lead instead. Summarizing the above, ability to defend cheap keeps multiple options in balance, whereas ability to attack cheap breaks balance by leaving only one viable option: conquest. And we all remember what superior strategy of all times is - boring!
The Civ I was nice in design: offensive units are more effective attacking unprepared defenders and less effective against prepared ones. However, AI poorly executed defensive strategy (as any other military strategy for that matter). It didn't beef up the defense except building lots of units in cities and didn't plan the attack by amassing troops on target either. As a result, AI to AI wars ended in stalemate. Whereas human player could take on unprepared AI cities and territories. I vividly recall that conquering the world in Civ I yielded about 300% rating while best economical development only 70-100%. Pity. So much for economic based strategy.
In Civ II it became worse. Even the design balance itself went down the toilet by introducing multi-round combat and healing concepts. Now it became irrelevant how much stronger the attacker units are. Even mere 3:2 ratio would give them 100% winning chance. Together with following healing it created unstoppable and indestructible armies of bombers and howitzers. 10-20 of them can wipe out enemy city in a single turn rolling in by enemy railroads. Game become boring from this moment on. I completely stopped all economical management in cities as soon as I got military advantage and just keep conquering whole world.
SMAC broke this already broken balance even more. Up to Civ II the nominal ratio of attack and defense for contemporary units was kept at about 3:2 with all original defensive bonuses. In SMAC this ratio explicitly changed to 2:1 and defensive bonuses went down. Now the best flat field defense bonus is 1.5 * 1.25 = 1.875 (bunker + sensor). That doesn't even bring defense up to the contemporary attack. The base with perimeter is a little better: 2 * 1.25 = 2.5. With such ridiculous numbers you don't even need needlejets to start a conquest. Everything you need is to discover weapon with 2:1 advantage to opponent armor and artillery! Here we see how single invention tilts battle to large stack. With artillery you can weaken defenders in a city by 50% and take it without casualties. Indestructible army in motion! Turn 50 of, supposedly, 400 turn game, gentlemen!!! Gets really boring. I stopped playing about 90% of my games at this moment even not finishing the actual conquest as the fate of whole planet was already sealed, obviously. The strategy game turns into "survive until you get the military advantage" game.
Enough about sad stuff. Let's see how this can be fixed to make game more challenging and beneficial to AI. After all this is what most of the modders are trying to do here.
# Return combat mechanics back to single round instant kill without later healing. This would make all unit effectiveness proportional to their attack/cost (defense/cost for defense units). Morale and morale increasing facilities would proportionally increase unit effectiveness and, therefore, play constantly important role throughout the whole game. Which is kinda the Morale idea.
# Slow down weapon progression to bring it to about 3:2 best attack to best defense ratio at any given point in time instead of 2:1 as it is now.
# Remove small attack and defense bonuses those make no sense. Like infantry +25% against base. Why on earth attacking unit in base would be more effective that in plain? I never understood a strategical need for this. Same goes for 25% intrinsic base defense. It is too small to make a big difference. If one wants to protect a base they need to build a Perimeter - that's it.
# Make all psi attack base odds 1:1 everywhere. Currently the 3:2 ground psi attack odds encourages unlimited planet pearl harvesting and worms harvesting. With 1:1 player will be cautious about natives as it should be. If you relay on fungus combing strategy - invest in Morale and Planet. That would potentially make you weak in other areas but that is your strategical choice.
# Improve bonuses for prepared defense. So that you can shield yourself from sworn enemy to some extent if you don't have power or technology to counterattack. Strategically placed fortified units in a bunker should be able to at least deflect first attack against contemporary weapon even if weakened in half by bombardment. I propose to raise artificial structure defensive bonuses for that. Something like: bunker = +100%, sensor = +50%. It brings raw 3:2 attacker odds to 3:(2*1.5*2*1.5) = 3:9 against unit on forest/fungus/rock + in bunker + near sensor. Or 6:9 if weakened by bombardment. Which still stops invasion quite good. Having bunker to provide 100% defense bonus is in line with base defense bonuses. Bunker is half as strong comparing to max base defense but it uses terrain bonuses additionally so should be more or less on pair.
# Improve overall sea defense. I am always crying my eyes out when I see ship attacking sea base. +25% intrinsic defense does not do good against 2:1 attacking odds so attacker wins all the time. Moreover, regular infantry defenders cannot counter attack ship even after it stopped after first attack. Comm jammer is not applicable against ships. So overall sea bases are helpless against even contemporary weapon. The only way to effectively defend it is with own ships and aircrafts. Without ZOC at sea enemy ships can surprise attack any of your bases. So you need sea or air defenders in all of them and not only one. This is insanely expensive.
Unfortunately, some of above variables need to changed in exe and not in alphax.txt. So here is my quick and dirty alphax.txt modification that I've tried so far and enjoyed.
0, ; Combat % -> intrinsic base defense {-100 to 32767}
0, ; Combat % -> for attacking from higher elevation {-100 to 32767}
0, ; Combat % -> defending against lower elevation {-100 to 32767}
; Elevation bonuses seem too small and too inconvenient to use. You don't get a clear visibility to elevation and need to measure every adjacent square. Too time consuming.
0, ; Combat % -> Defend vs. mobile in rough {-100 to 32767}
; Rough terrain already provides defensive bonuses. Comm jammer is free and already does a pretty good job against fast units.
0, ; Combat % -> Infantry vs. Base {-100 to 32767}
; Pretty strange bonus from strategical point of view. If you want to encourage infantry usage then Comm jammer already does an amazing job.
0, ; Combat penalty % -> Non-combat unit defending vs. combat unit {-32768 to 100}
; Another strange bonus. Non-combat units are pretty easy to knock out anyway. Why they need to be weakened even more?
-50, ; Combat % -> Bonus vs. ships caught in port {-100 to 32767}
; To make ships in port actually more effective. This is the only way to protect sea bases.
50, ; Combat % -> Defend in range of friendly Sensor {-100 to 32767}
; As proposed above
Post by: bvanevery on October 19, 2018, 04:02:24 AM
# Slow down weapon progression to bring it to about 3:2 best attack to best defense ratio at any given point in time instead of 2:1 as it is now.
In my mod the ratio of weapon to armor power in the tech tree is 1:1. There are more weapons than armors in the tree so parity is reached, then weapons creep forward, then parity is reached again. I had heard too many complaints over the years about armor being pointless because the weapons are so powerful. I tried to adjust that.
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# Remove small attack and defense bonuses those make no sense. Like infantry +25% against base. Why on earth attacking unit in base would be more effective that in plain? I never understood a strategical need for this. Same goes for 25% intrinsic base defense. It is too small to make a big difference. If one wants to protect a base they need to build a Perimeter - that's it.
The idea is that infantry do a better job in crowded streetfighting conditions. This is historically accurate. Tanks, especially Cold War tanks that were designed for the plains of Europe, aren't so good in the 3D combat of a modern urban environment. It is possible to make "street fighting" tanks and vehicles that do better in cramped quarters, but it's a specific kind of design, and infantry do generally have real world advantages in such environments. Whereas out on the plains, infantry get killed.
You might be getting hung up on the idea of the infantry "attacking". Instead consider how they are "performing". Of course they should be getting +25% attack and defense in a base, meaning you want your city to defend with infantry. Or else infantry is +0% and various vehicles get penalties.
For a sci-fi game, it is significant that they didn't bother with powered armor. It would have obvious advantages in urban combat.
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# Make all psi attack base odds 1:1 everywhere. Currently the 3:2 ground psi attack odds encourages unlimited planet pearl harvesting and worms harvesting.
You mean you personally have the patience to bother with all of that? If you're really willing to grind your way to victory through excessive mouseclicking, should the game stop you? It's a lot of work.
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With 1:1 player will be cautious about natives as it should be.
I'm already cautious. I use very few units to explore with, and get the most done with them. If I pop a pod and 8 mindworms surround me, I'm gonna die, unless I was using a mindworm myself. If I'm a PLANET friendly faction and build up some mindworms in the bush, I don't see that as a big deal. Logistically, they don't move quickly to a military front that actually needs them against other factions. They tend to be in the wrong place whenever a war is happening. If you throw your horde at a distant enemy, and that's all you've got, they don't tend to prevail. They have a bit of a "glass cannon" vibe to them. They're strong when they rendezvous with a more conventional invasion force, supplied by more conventional logistics.
One thing I did do in my mod, is take away free Trance and ECM abilities. You have to pay for those. This in essence makes mindworms tougher on offense, because they face fewer units specifically designed to defend against them.
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Strategically placed fortified units in a bunker should be able to at least deflect first attack against contemporary weapon even if weakened in half by bombardment.
I took bunkers out of my mod entirely. The AI builds them obsessively when it should be developing other terrain improvements. Then it never populates those bunkers, instead just creating liabilities when a human player invades their home territory. Human gets all this great free defense that the AI built for it. Forget it!
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Comm jammer is not applicable against ships.
It isn't? I thought ships are "fast units".
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Without ZOC at sea enemy ships can surprise attack any of your bases.
So strategy might say not to invest in the sea then. You were interested in strategy. Are you sure you aren't just making synonyms for "turtling up" rather than strategy?
I did make Sensor Arrays buildable on water, i.e. sonar buoys ala Call To Power. I'm told that they won't give any defense bonus on the water though. Still, being able to see what's approaching is valuable.
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So you need sea or air defenders in all of them and not only one. This is insanely expensive.
I cut chassis costs in half for foils and cruisers. They are equivalent in cost to speeders and hovertanks. Expense problem solved. I've had naval wars against the Hive where I took a whole lot of his sea bases. Then he counterattacked with his own ship spam and foil probe teams, taking back most of what I'd gained. The naval wars are more fluid now. Easy come, easy go. Like water itself!
Post by: PvtHudson on October 19, 2018, 07:42:56 AM
My understanding of strategic game is that ... That is why they are called strategical after all.Excellent wording!
… That, in my mind, is a cornerstone of strategy games appeal.
Now the best flat field defense bonus is 1.5 * 1.25 = 1.875 (bunker + sensor)... The base with perimeter is a little better: 2 * 1.25 = 2.5.A little clarification that furthers your point even more: I believe those boni are additive, not multiplicative.
So overall sea bases are helpless against even contemporary weapon. The only way to effectively defend it is with own ships and aircrafts.Another little clarification: Naval Yard provides +100% defense against ships.
As I understand it, SMAC is all about active defense, i.e. counterattack with mobile forces: rovers on roads, ships, aircrafts, probes. Only groups of combined arms defenders in prepared locations stand a chance against attack in force, and even that only to buy time to bring reinforcements. And in my humble opinion this more dynamic warfare is good. Less turtling makes the game better, just not to the point of simple exchange of devastating blows - leave that to Blanet Buster apocalypse. After all it's not ancient times with years-long sieges. Except maybe air power should be nerfed somewhat. If only AI could execute active defense better!
However, another defense buffing mod is always welcomed.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on October 19, 2018, 02:26:57 PM
Thank you for actively responding to my posts. I appreciate that. Now to the specific points you highlighted.
Yep. That should work too. Besides, it is all approximate. One can develop stronger weapon earlier on purpose and other can opt for better armor. So it varies. I just wanted to avoid situation of 8 weapon fighting 3 armor or something. Anyway, with other defensive bonuses this going to bring defense on par of somewhat better. I think your ratio works great for naval combat, though. The Civ I and Civ II were using equal attack/defense for majority of ships. I guess mostly because of fast movement, lack of ZOC, and lack of terrain bonuses. So it makes perfect sense for me. I should try your ratio now.# Slow down weapon progression to bring it to about 3:2 best attack to best defense ratio at any given point in time instead of 2:1 as it is now.
In my mod the ratio of weapon to armor power in the tech tree is 1:1. There are more weapons than armors in the tree so parity is reached, then weapons creep forward, then parity is reached again. I had heard too many complaints over the years about armor being pointless because the weapons are so powerful. I tried to adjust that.
OMG, man. "historically accurate"? I've heard this stupid argument a lot of time before but didn't expect it from you taking that you are seriously focused on balance. Pardon my language. Didn't mean any offence but, seriously, let's not appeal to real life while creating a game!Quote# Remove small attack and defense bonuses those make no sense. Like infantry +25% against base. Why on earth attacking unit in base would be more effective that in plain? I never understood a strategical need for this. Same goes for 25% intrinsic base defense. It is too small to make a big difference. If one wants to protect a base they need to build a Perimeter - that's it.
The idea is that infantry do a better job in crowded streetfighting conditions. This is historically accurate. Tanks, especially Cold War tanks that were designed for the plains of Europe, aren't so good in the 3D combat of a modern urban environment. It is possible to make "street fighting" tanks and vehicles that do better in cramped quarters, but it's a specific kind of design, and infantry do generally have real world advantages in such environments. Whereas out on the plains, infantry get killed.
You might be getting hung up on the idea of the infantry "attacking". Instead consider how they are "performing". Of course they should be getting +25% attack and defense in a base, meaning you want your city to defend with infantry. Or else infantry is +0% and various vehicles get penalties.
For a sci-fi game, it is significant that they didn't bother with powered armor. It would have obvious advantages in urban combat.
The idea of giving different bonuses to different unit types is to support variability. Make some units better at something and others at something else. So player would mix and match and make choices. Mobile units already have great advantages. They are faster to the front line wasting less mineral support and building faster army concentration. They can first strike not adjacent infantry. With +25% in the open they can clean slow advancing army in the field. Obviously, infantry need to have some bonuses too to be viable. I agree with you that giving infantry +25% on both attack and defense in a base would be a good choice. This would essentially impact tank performance against base. Unfortunately, this cannot be done through alphax.txt. So maybe we should keep both base bonus and infantry vs. base as the closest thing to it. I'll think about it.
It doesn't matter who bother to do what. What matters is the exploit is there and don't want it to be there. Besides, this is not the most important aspect of psi ground combat. The more important one is base defense against random worms and psi warfare. Existing ratio is too high it is a guaranteed kill of unit in a base without additional psi ability. I don't want the attacker to have free advantage.Quote# Make all psi attack base odds 1:1 everywhere. Currently the 3:2 ground psi attack odds encourages unlimited planet pearl harvesting and worms harvesting.
You mean you personally have the patience to bother with all of that? If you're really willing to grind your way to victory through excessive mouseclicking, should the game stop you? It's a lot of work.
Oh, that's a good suggestion! I generally agree nothing should be free. When it is free you got not option - you just got to have it! With price you are always thinking whether to opt for it or not.QuoteWith 1:1 player will be cautious about natives as it should be.One thing I did do in my mod, is take away free Trance and ECM abilities. You have to pay for those. This in essence makes mindworms tougher on offense, because they face fewer units specifically designed to defend against them.
Hmm. I noticed this too. I agree bunker doesn't help AI. How did you get rid of it without exe patching?QuoteStrategically placed fortified units in a bunker should be able to at least deflect first attack against contemporary weapon even if weakened in half by bombardment.
I took bunkers out of my mod entirely. The AI builds them obsessively when it should be developing other terrain improvements. Then it never populates those bunkers, instead just creating liabilities when a human player invades their home territory. Human gets all this great free defense that the AI built for it. Forget it!
But then without bunker how do you bump up defense in a field? Probably stronger sensors which automatically affect friendly units and AI uses them. Also going down to 1:1 weapon/armor ratio should do the trick too.
Nope. Read docs. It says it there explicitly. I would love it to extend to naval.QuoteComm jammer is not applicable against ships.
It isn't? I thought ships are "fast units".
Let me reiterate it once more. It's not about strategy. It's about making game strategical. Which means: every choice should be viable in some way or another. If they have an ability to build sea bases then they should be defendable at least with some effort. No level of efforts help protecting them in vanilla game. Whoever has bigger armada eventually knocks out all enemy ships and takes all sea bases with zero loss. That is not a strategical game.QuoteWithout ZOC at sea enemy ships can surprise attack any of your bases.
So strategy might say not to invest in the sea then. You were interested in strategy. Are you sure you aren't just making synonyms for "turtling up" rather than strategy?
I did make Sensor Arrays buildable on water, i.e. sonar buoys ala Call To Power. I'm told that they won't give any defense bonus on the water though. Still, being able to see what's approaching is valuable.
Aha. That's a good solution. I should try it. Is it all in your AI growth mod now?QuoteSo you need sea or air defenders in all of them and not only one. This is insanely expensive.
I cut chassis costs in half for foils and cruisers. They are equivalent in cost to speeders and hovertanks. Expense problem solved. I've had naval wars against the Hive where I took a whole lot of his sea bases. Then he counterattacked with his own ship spam and foil probe teams, taking back most of what I'd gained. The naval wars are more fluid now. Easy come, easy go. Like water itself!
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on October 19, 2018, 03:13:17 PM
You sure??? I always thought they are multiplicative. Would like to check it out. I'm sure there a thread on this somewhere. Did you happen to stumble across one?Now the best flat field defense bonus is 1.5 * 1.25 = 1.875 (bunker + sensor)... The base with perimeter is a little better: 2 * 1.25 = 2.5.A little clarification that furthers your point even more: I believe those boni are additive, not multiplicative.
Yep. I know that. In vanilla game it is the only defensive sea bonus and even with it it just brings defense on par with attack. Besides, AI rarely build them.So overall sea bases are helpless against even contemporary weapon. The only way to effectively defend it is with own ships and aircrafts.Another little clarification: Naval Yard provides +100% defense against ships.
As I understand it, SMAC is all about active defense, i.e. counterattack with mobile forces: rovers on roads, ships, aircrafts, probes. Only groups of combined arms defenders in prepared locations stand a chance against attack in force, and even that only to buy time to bring reinforcements. And in my humble opinion this more dynamic warfare is good. Less turtling makes the game better, just not to the point of simple exchange of devastating blows - leave that to Blanet Buster apocalypse. After all it's not ancient times with years-long sieges. Except maybe air power should be nerfed somewhat. If only AI could execute active defense better!You are right. I figured it out too in the beginning and hoped for interesting games. Unfortunately, this idea didn't fly mostly because of two things.
However, another defense buffing mod is always welcomed.
First, AI sucks at war. It doesn't do any sophisticated tactics, forget the active defense. It doesn't populate own bunkers. It doesn't kill severely damaged attackers next to the base even with exceptionally favorable odds. In other words: bad AI.
Second is that you need quite a lot of different unit types to prepare active defense (infantry, tanks, artillery, diplomats, interceptors, bunkers, sensors, perimeters, maybe worms too, etc.). If you are lacking few - your defense is flawed. If you are lacking many - your defense is non-existent. So you need to be already pretty strong economically and have enough time preparing for defense. Which is in vanilla game just plain ineffective comparing to building assault army with the same resources and wiping out your enemy instead.
The thing is that active defense is nice idea but it ain't cheap. That is what I am working on: to make equivalent defense much cheaper. So, even in case of surprise invasion when you scramble for one defender here and one there, you'll be able to slow down the invasion so you can prepare even stronger defense behind the line and eventually stop it completely.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on October 19, 2018, 03:16:47 PM
I want to apply your mod to Yutzi's patch and Binary Dawn. I guess since it is all alphax.txt I should be able just cut and paste it and get best of both worlds. Any special things I should keep in mind besides that?
Post by: bvanevery on October 19, 2018, 03:50:11 PM
One can develop stronger weapon earlier on purpose and other can opt for better armor.
Um, actually, you can't. Not unless you're an Alien, or playing with directed research turned on, which I consider to be cheating. Ordinary blind research is you can choose Explore, Discover, Build, or Conquer, that's it. And in my mod, both weapons and armor are strictly Conquer techs, they have no overlap with any other category. So in my mod you can choose to research weapons and armor or not research them, that's all the choice you have about it. There are more Conquer techs than anything else in the tree, so whether you get stronger weapons or armor first is pretty much random. The only way you're going to get a lot better of one or the other is if your research rate is very fast.
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So it varies. I just wanted to avoid situation of 8 weapon fighting 3 armor or something.
It happens all the time. So does fighting with Fusion Power units against fission units. In Civ terms I think of it as a Colonial slaughter. I considered taking Fusion, Quantum, and Singularity reactors out of the game but I didn't do it. I tried to shove them all the way to the end of the tech tree for awhile, but that didn't work as it was very annoying to suddenly go through 3 tiers at the end. Also the Unit Design Workshop got very cluttered because there was no point at which units would become obviously obsolete. I eventually went back to the way the unmodded game mostly does it, although I think due to the breadth of Conquer techs available, Fusion Power actually comes a bit later. Maybe late midgame.
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Anyway, with other defensive bonuses this going to bring defense on par of somewhat better.
That's been fine by me. I find that in a base, defenders often barely survive with severe wounds.
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OMG, man. "historically accurate"? I've heard this stupid argument a lot of time before but didn't expect it from you taking that you are seriously focused on balance. Pardon my language. Didn't mean any offence but, seriously, let's not appeal to real life while creating a game!
There is nothing inherently invalid about taking a Simulationist approach to game design. GNS Theory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNS_theory) is the usual way in which I personally consider the concerns.
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The idea of giving different bonuses to different unit types is to support variability.
This approach is inherently Gamist. A Simulationist says if tanks are supposed to die in the streets because they can't move around, then they must die. Regardless of whether that creates interesting choices for a player or not. I say it does create a choice: the choice not to be stupid with urban combat.
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You mean you personally have the patience to bother with all of that? If you're really willing to grind your way to victory through excessive mouseclicking, should the game stop you? It's a lot of work.It doesn't matter who bother to do what. What matters is the exploit is there and don't want it to be there.
Ah, but that's what you want. I don't feel like dictating how to play the game, when the payoff comes from doing a pile of real world work. Let's put it this way: if we had a competition where the goal was to win the game fastest in real time, not turn time, I think the mindworm farmers would lose. Some people want to build and sandbox when they're playing the game. I don't see a reason to stop them when their excessive micromanagement isn't terribly consequential to the ordinary flow of the game.
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Besides, this is not the most important aspect of psi ground combat. The more important one is base defense against random worms and psi warfare. Existing ratio is too high it is a guaranteed kill of unit in a base without additional psi ability. I don't want the attacker to have free advantage.
Putting my Simulationist hat on again, I don't have a basic problem with offense working. In real life, it works. I don't think anyone is entitled to have an armored forward point just anywhere they want. If you are too close to an enemy who can logistically sneak up a lot of troops on you, you get to die.
If you don't want to spend on Trance (where in my mod you must in fact spend for it), you can have your units have higher morale. Either pick MORALE increasing SE choices, or make units in Command Centers, or give them High Morale ability (but you might as well have chosen Trance since they cost the same), or level up your units manually and send them back for garrison duty when strong enough. You've got plenty of choices here about how to beef up defenses against mindworms, so I'm not really seeing the problem here.
Increasing your PLANET rating also helps in Psi combat.
Oh, and if you really don't want to face a lot of mindworms, don't flood the planet.
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Hmm. I noticed this too. I agree bunker doesn't help AI. How did you get rid of it without exe patching?Easy, in alphax.txt:
Code: [Select]
Bunker, Disable, Bunker, Disable, 5, Construct $STR0, K, KQuote
But then without bunker how do you bump up defense in a field?In an open field, you don't. Stay off of them unless you're a Speeder. Stick to Rocky terrain and use armored infantry if you want to advance towards an objective more safely.
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Nope. Read docs. It says it there explicitly. I would love it to extend to naval.It says, "50% defense bonus against ground units with more than 1 move (Speeders and Hovertanks)." It doesn't talk about ships. I think the bonus might still be applied to ships attacking a unit in a sea base, regardless of whether or not it's documented. I'm certain it doesn't apply to air attacks. In my mod, ships are not allowed to have comm jammers, as I believe them to be "fast units".
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Let me reiterate it once more. It's not about strategy. It's about making game strategical. Which means: every choice should be viable in some way or another. If they have an ability to build sea bases then they should be defendable at least with some effort. No level of efforts help protecting them in vanilla game. Whoever has bigger armada eventually knocks out all enemy ships and takes all sea bases with zero loss. That is not a strategical game.
Your claim here doesn't make sense to me. It's been awhile since I've played the unmodded game, but I don't remember naval assaults on sea bases being some kind of "gimme" where I take no wounds. Yes someone can use naval artillery to wear down a base, but someone can put artillery in the base to stop that. Also, artillery takes multiple turns to wear a base down, unless one's guns are rather powerful compared to the defender's armor. It a capture takes time, then that's time for someone to bring in units to defend it.
Another thing to consider is unless you're the Pirates, you don't want someone else's sea bases. Generally they're worthless. Poor production, too far away, they just create Bureaucracy drones. If I'm not committing atrocities, they're the last thing I conquer.
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Aha. That's a good solution. I should try it. Is it all in your AI growth mod now?
Of course, and much tested. Generally speaking, I'd be interested in whether you have nearly so many objections to combat balance, after playing my mod. I made a lot of non-trivial changes to this stuff. I didn't use any particularly sophisticated method to arrive at results. I just said, "this is too weak" and made a minor change in a setting. "This is too strong" and another minor change. A lot of iteration on that. Over time, a lot of variables affected. I doubt there's any way to just cakewalk anything, aside from the usual Fusion reactor problem. But at least that comes later in the game now.
Post by: bvanevery on October 19, 2018, 03:54:34 PM
By the way, bvanevery.
I want to apply your mod to Yutzi's patch and Binary Dawn. I guess since it is all alphax.txt I should be able just cut and paste it and get best of both worlds. Any special things I should keep in mind besides that?
For Yitzi, try to see if you can get Vidsek to make a public release of his own incorporation. There are no special difficulties as Yitzi has very few conflicts with mods. He did something tweaky about Conventional Missile attack strengths, changing the encoding somehow. That's about it.
I'm not familiar with Binary Dawn so I can't comment. You can run its alphax.txt and faction.txt through a diff tool such as WinMerge to see what's changed, comparing it to the original unmodded game.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on October 19, 2018, 04:10:18 PM
I didn't mean on purpose. I meant occasionally it happens.One can develop stronger weapon earlier on purpose and other can opt for better armor.
Um, actually, you can't. Not unless you're an Alien, or playing with directed research turned on, which I consider to be cheating. Ordinary blind research is you can choose Explore, Discover, Build, or Conquer, that's it. And in my mod, both weapons and armor are strictly Conquer techs, they have no overlap with any other category. So in my mod you can choose to research weapons and armor or not research them, that's all the choice you have about it. There are more Conquer techs than anything else in the tree, so whether you get stronger weapons or armor first is pretty much random. The only way you're going to get a lot better of one or the other is if your research rate is very fast.
It does indeed. Don't know what to do with reactors either. Maybe make them do units more expensive? That would be fair. Otherwise, they are more powerful and less expensive. That is leaping too far.QuoteSo it varies. I just wanted to avoid situation of 8 weapon fighting 3 armor or something.
It happens all the time. So does fighting with Fusion Power units against fission units. In Civ terms I think of it as a Colonial slaughter. I considered taking Fusion, Quantum, and Singularity reactors out of the game but I didn't do it. I tried to shove them all the way to the end of the tech tree for awhile, but that didn't work as it was very annoying to suddenly go through 3 tiers at the end. Also the Unit Design Workshop got very cluttered because there was no point at which units would become obviously obsolete. I eventually went back to the way the unmodded game mostly does it, although I think due to the breadth of Conquer techs available, Fusion Power actually comes a bit later. Maybe late midgame.
That is my point. There are simulation games. Even then they are tuned to be addictive. I never ever saw a pure pure 100% simulation to be a game. They train pilots in aircraft simulation station but it is not a game. From the other hand, SimCity is a game and not a real city planning simulation. It borrows concepts from a real life but all game rules are completely custom and have nothing to do with real life.QuoteOMG, man. "historically accurate"? I've heard this stupid argument a lot of time before but didn't expect it from you taking that you are seriously focused on balance. Pardon my language. Didn't mean any offence but, seriously, let's not appeal to real life while creating a game!
There is nothing inherently invalid about taking a Simulationist approach to game design. GNS Theory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNS_theory) is the usual way in which I personally consider the concerns.
Whatever is it I don't want to play pure simulation it's boring. I prefer strategical games instead.
Precisely! Now I know who I am.QuoteThe idea of giving different bonuses to different unit types is to support variability.
This approach is inherently Gamist. A Simulationist says if tanks are supposed to die in the streets because they can't move around, then they must die. Regardless of whether that creates interesting choices for a player or not. I say it does create a choice: the choice not to be stupid with urban combat.
:)
Well sure. I am building game for myself. As you mentioned in my other thread about Social Effect comparison: "change whatever you don't like about the game and try it out".QuoteYou mean you personally have the patience to bother with all of that? If you're really willing to grind your way to victory through excessive mouseclicking, should the game stop you? It's a lot of work.It doesn't matter who bother to do what. What matters is the exploit is there and don't want it to be there.
Ah, but that's what you want. I don't feel like dictating how to play the game, when the payoff comes from doing a pile of real world work. Let's put it this way: if we had a competition where the goal was to win the game fastest in real time, not turn time, I think the mindworm farmers would lose. Some people want to build and sandbox when they're playing the game. I don't see a reason to stop them when their excessive micromanagement isn't terribly consequential to the ordinary flow of the game.
explicitly: Speeders and Hovertanks. Well, it doesn't say "only" but this is how this documentation is written. Ugh.QuoteNope. Read docs. It says it there explicitly. I would love it to extend to naval.It says, "50% defense bonus against ground units with more than 1 move (Speeders and Hovertanks)." It doesn't talk about ships. I think the bonus might still be applied to ships attacking a unit in a sea base, regardless of whether or not it's documented. I'm certain it doesn't apply to air attacks. In my mod, ships are not allowed to have comm jammers, as I believe them to be "fast units".
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on October 19, 2018, 04:12:50 PM
For Yitzi, try to see if you can get Vidsek to make a public release of his own incorporation.Not familiar with Vidsek. Why do I need a special release?
Post by: bvanevery on October 19, 2018, 04:27:49 PM
3, 4, 5, 6 yields 100%
Just realized those would be the Planet Buster blast radii too. Bit of a dealbreaker!
Post by: bvanevery on October 19, 2018, 04:43:31 PM
Not familiar with Vidsek. Why do I need a special release?
Come to think of it, you probably don't. I just thought it would be less tedious. Yitzi altered a few things in alphax.txt. Run it with a diff tool against the unmodded game to see what he changed. Start with my mod, then add whatever Yitzi added to alphax.txt.
Just did the diffing exercise myself. He made a lot of changes to the "Fundamental Rules" section, mostly adding new lines for his features I think. He changed Conventional Missiles and Stockpile Energy. He corrected a spelling error. He changed the description of The Bulk Matter Transmitter. He changed the prereq for The Ascent to Transcendence from "Thresh" to "None", which I guess is an interpretation of "anyone can build it" once Voice of Planet is complete. Cosmetic leading space removed in SE choice tables. Longer comments about faction mod options. Reshuffled Bonus Names, not sure if he added any. Added a "1" after natural landmark entries. That's it.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on October 19, 2018, 07:21:09 PM
Anyone can have a look at my worksheet attached. Tab: "Binary Dawn 3.2 techs" with technologies and columns showing their research sequence index (min, max, average). Tab: "Binary Dawn 3.2 weapon armor" shows corresponding technologies for weapon and armor and their average research sequence index. The only sequential problem with weapons is that Chaos Gun gets researched sooner than Bio Shard on average. So I put Chaos Gun in front of Bio Shard in term of attack rating. I also made weapon attack rating progression more dense by adding rating 3 for conventional weapon (ignoring all special types). The progression now looks rather smooth and proportional. No more 12-13-16 as in vanilla. I've change a progression of armor to match the one of the weapon exactly. After all changes in less than 20% increment will be difficult to notice for both weapon and armor.
This is for Binary Dawn mod. I'll do the same for AI Growth. I'm sure the balance there is much better. I'll just check the research sequence index for corresponding technologies making sure they are coming in order.
Actually, it would be much much easier and natural to chain military technologies together to assure higher weapon and armor ratings come in succession. Otherwise, researching weaker weapon or armor is a waste. However, it may require intense weapon/armor to technology reassignment.
Post by: bvanevery on October 19, 2018, 07:32:59 PM
Actually, it would be much much easier and natural to chain military technologies together to assure higher weapon and armor ratings come in succession.
I did that. The Conquer sequence is pretty much the backbone of the tech tree.
I'm not sure why it ended up 2 posts ago, but a note on reactor sequences. 3, 4, 5, 6 would unfortunately be the size of Planet Buster blast radii as well. Bit of a dealbreaker! Only thing that remains is to test whether they take a decimal number rather than an integer. I bet they don't.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on October 19, 2018, 07:34:41 PM
Awesome!!!Actually, it would be much much easier and natural to chain military technologies together to assure higher weapon and armor ratings come in succession.
I did that. The Conquer sequence is pretty much the backbone of the tech tree.
:D
Post by: bvanevery on October 19, 2018, 08:42:51 PM
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on October 20, 2018, 12:06:59 AM
By the way what does this mean in your alphax.txt?
30, ; 12 Continent base (Base size of a land mass seed)
60, ; 24 Continent modif. (Increased size from LAND selection: x0, x1, x2)
0 ; 36 Islands (Higher # increases island count)
Post by: bvanevery on October 20, 2018, 03:32:03 AM
Post by: Vidsek on October 20, 2018, 05:59:23 PM
As bvanevery mentioned, I have been working on merging his AI Growth mod with Yitzi's latest. I had it functioning smoothly (as in no crashes or obvious bugs) as of AIG v. 119. I haven't had the time to update it to AIG v. 1.22 as yet, but very much want to and will.
The process is fairly simple, if somewhat time consuming in places.
First: Yitzi made no changes to the Faction Files, so I simply use bvanevery's. I did make some changes to my personal custom faction's bonuses to keep it in line with the AIG philosophy and not be overly OP.
Second: for most of the sections in alphax.exe there is either no change or you can simply replace Yitzi's with the AIG one, making sure to preserve line spacing and so on where it is important.
The one change I did make on my own was to line up everything in neat columns for ease of reading and comparing entries. Since this only required adding or deleting blank spaces, I assumed it would not be a perversion of either Yitzi's or bvanevery's work.
The RULES section takes a bit more work, as Yitzi both added new content and rearranged the order of some of the existing lines. I just kept a checklist as I went through Yitzi's alphax and made the changes. And yes, it was easier for me to use Yitzi's as the base and modify it than the other way around.
Third: Yitzi added the ability to adjust drone rules, unit costs, and the cost of switching between different types of production (plus a couple other minor things).
To keep the merged mod functioning closely to what bvanevery intended, I studied the options for each of those and tried to choose the one that most closely matched what happens in un-modded SMACX.
Naturally, at several stages in this process, I fired up a game to check for crashes and malfunctions. The only place I found a problem that wasn't due to a typo, was (as best as I can tell) with the "facility" Stockpile Energy. When it was changed from Yitzi's cost of 2 to cost of 0 it caused a crash, so I left the cost at 2 (not a notable game-changer). I think in more recent work, it mysteriously stopped doing that. I will check it out further when I do the AIG v. 1.22/Yitzi merge.
Now, in the (admittedly somewhat limited) game testing I did with the merged mods, I found the AI and game in general to function very similarly to what bvanevery described from his testing, and showed in his AARs. It will definitely need much more testing, especially in the late-middle and late game stages I haven't yet had time to play and study.
You are welcome to work up your own merge if you become impatient with my pace of getting this finished (just turned 65, so I've been mired in getting paperwork done for medical and retirement type stuff recently).
Hopefully what I've outlined above will be a help, if anyone needs more explanation or clarification, I'll be happy to give it.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on October 20, 2018, 09:31:57 PM
I was about to do the same just now but realized it is not just merging two files together. So I'm glad that you have already done all the work.
:)
I definitely can upgrade to 1.22 if you share whatever you ended up with. I guess incremental change will be much easier.
One thing that struck me is the additional variables Yutzi added for faction bonuses. He rearranged their keywords too. So I was thinking that'll require checking if AIG faction files use same exactly keys as in alphax.txt file. That was my only concern.
Post by: bvanevery on October 20, 2018, 09:43:34 PM
One thing that struck me is the additional variables Yutzi added for faction bonuses. He rearranged their keywords too. So I was thinking that'll require checking if AIG faction files use same exactly keys as in alphax.txt file.
I did not change any keys. I seriously doubt Yitzi would have changed existing keys, that would be an extremely daft thing to do. He probably just added keys.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on October 20, 2018, 10:26:38 PM
Whatever is it, can you share you latest merge result?
Post by: bvanevery on October 23, 2018, 05:44:45 PM
Whatever is it, can you share you latest merge result?
I guess you're addressing Vidsek? I've never merged Yitzi's alphax.txt with my own. I've merely stared at differences using the WinMerge tool.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on October 23, 2018, 05:46:27 PM
I've done it already. Thank you.Whatever is it, can you share you latest merge result?
I guess you're addressing Vidsek? I've never merged Yitzi's alphax.txt with my own. I've merely stared at differences using the WinMerge tool.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 06, 2018, 02:34:13 PM
You can build like 10 needlejects capable of knocking out enemy base defenders and just bomb-heal-repeat conquer them without casualties.So can them. AIs even before ThinkerMod were capable of amassing needlejets and destroying every former, colony pod and crawler in range, then switching to base defenders.For AI it is even worse as it doesn't know about indestructible army tactics and doesn't use it. Humans do and that's why they beat it every time.Sorry, I don't catch. AI builds units with highest available attack, and it uses healing, doesn't it? But probably we should talk about this in your thread, not here.
Sorry about wording. It is quite difficult to explain these terms in short paragraph.
I am talking about two things those are different but can be used together.
1) Indestructible attacker. This happens when a faction possesses a unit with attack strength enough to knock out a defender with near 100% probability. If this unit can also escape retaliation then it returns to safety, heals and repeats. This usually applicable to needlejets and ships as there are not much units capable of attacking them from base. However land units can be that too as AI often does not counterattack weakly defended attacker near base for some reason. Bot AI and human can get such indestructible units with technology advantage.
2) Concentrated fire tactics. You gather attackers near the base but do not attack until you are sure you can clear it with one turn. Then you go. Then you can take it and avoid retaliation at least from this base. This tactics is used mostly by human and not AI. As AI usually does not "wait" if they have an opportunity to use the unit. Each AI unit acts more or less alone by its own program.
Summarizing above, I am saying that AI naturally can get indestructible units when they have weapon/armor advantage. However, it doesn't use concentrated fire tactics on purpose. To get to the point when it incurs no casualties it has to have both weapon/armor advantage and sheer number of units. So that even though each unit acts independently there are many units acting at the same turn. The only difference between AI and human is that human can achieve this level with lesser number of units. Where AI needs 20 needlejets and 10 ground units human can be effective with 5 needlejets, 2 rovers, and 1 probe. As a result of being more effective human usually wins overall.
Once again. I understand this is kind of a gray area. As with any exploits both healing and skewed combat odds benefit human more just because they consciously exploit them while AI does this unconsciously and, therefore, benefit less.
Usual disclaimer. I do not state this reasoning is 100% accurate. This is merely an opinion to support the discussion.
Post by: bvanevery on November 06, 2018, 06:51:39 PM
You gather attackers near the base but do not attack until you are sure you can clear it with one turn. Then you go. Then you can take it and avoid retaliation at least from this base. This tactics is used mostly by human and not AI.
This phenomenon occurs in every computer game ever made that doesn't have much in the way of AI brains, but instead relies on large resource advantages and the spawning of units to provide a challenge to the player. Formally I call it "the spawning problem". It is no different than a game of Gauntlet, with all the units coming out of some designated spawning box. It just occurs in turn-based slow motion. I first fully realized how this works when playing Panzer General II. If you knock out the city, you make progress. If you don't, it tediously pulls new units out of its ass.
Others have called this a "thresholding" problem. The AI has a threshold of what it will or won't detect as a threat. Humans are good at noticing these patterns and find ways to hang around just outside the range of perceived threat. This of course works in real life as well, when hunting game, or ambushing an enemy.
Post by: PvtHudson on November 07, 2018, 09:11:55 AM
Continuing discussion with PvtHudson started in http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=21013.msg116424#msg116424 (http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=21013.msg116424#msg116424)You can build like 10 needlejects capable of knocking out enemy base defenders and just bomb-heal-repeat conquer them without casualties.So can them. AIs even before ThinkerMod were capable of amassing needlejets and destroying every former, colony pod and crawler in range, then switching to base defenders.For AI it is even worse as it doesn't know about indestructible army tactics and doesn't use it. Humans do and that's why they beat it every time.Sorry, I don't catch. AI builds units with highest available attack, and it uses healing, doesn't it? But probably we should talk about this in your thread, not here.
Sorry about wording. It is quite difficult to explain these terms in short paragraph.
I am talking about two things those are different but can be used together.
1) Indestructible attacker. This happens when a faction possesses a unit with attack strength enough to knock out a defender with near 100% probability. If this unit can also escape retaliation then it returns to safety, heals and repeats. This usually applicable to needlejets and ships as there are not much units capable of attacking them from base. However land units can be that too as AI often does not counterattack weakly defended attacker near base for some reason. Bot AI and human can get such indestructible units with technology advantage.
2) Concentrated fire tactics. You gather attackers near the base but do not attack until you are sure you can clear it with one turn. Then you go. Then you can take it and avoid retaliation at least from this base. This tactics is used mostly by human and not AI. As AI usually does not "wait" if they have an opportunity to use the unit. Each AI unit acts more or less alone by its own program.
Summarizing above, I am saying that AI naturally can get indestructible units when they have weapon/armor advantage. However, it doesn't use concentrated fire tactics on purpose. To get to the point when it incurs no casualties it has to have both weapon/armor advantage and sheer number of units. So that even though each unit acts independently there are many units acting at the same turn. The only difference between AI and human is that human can achieve this level with lesser number of units. Where AI needs 20 needlejets and 10 ground units human can be effective with 5 needlejets, 2 rovers, and 1 probe. As a result of being more effective human usually wins overall.
Once again. I understand this is kind of a gray area. As with any exploits both healing and skewed combat odds benefit human more just because they consciously exploit them while AI does this unconsciously and, therefore, benefit less.
Usual disclaimer. I do not state this reasoning is 100% accurate. This is merely an opinion to support the discussion.
1) I agree there is some problem, although, IMHO, you overstate the scale of it. In theory, in the SMAC ruleset attackers aren't 100% indestructible. Especially needlejets and gravships, that after bombing run are sitting ducks waiting for enemy interceptors and SAM-capable ships/land units. If you provide fighter escort, it's just 1:1 slugfest at best in the enemy turn, and you need to produce and support bombers AND escorts. Similar counter-attackers exist for other types of attackers. Worst offenders here are attack choppers, that can deal massive damage and withdraw to relative safety in the same turn. OP choppers are near consensus on the forums, and many mods reduce their range. In general, I believe the issue is not in unit specs per se, but in AI inability to counter-attack properly, and hence the solution should be AI improvement and not rule change. Disabling healing and, especially, buffing defenders will promote bloody grinding and make the game less enjoyable. Not mentioning balance bias to high-production players. IMHO, of course.
2) This is obvious AI problem. I think, partly it can be explained by AI's desire to reduce splash damage to its attacking troops. Indeed, splash damage from defending artillery and losses in attackers' ranks is the best counter to concentration tactic. Once again, it's AI's fault, not ruleset's. However, even with current AI there are glimpses of hope - its artillery will start duels with yours if in range, its air will attack your exposed reinforcements nearing assembly point, and amassing of forces in one nearby base is a prompt for AI's nuke.
You should play the game Pandora: First Contact. Its tactical AI can teach SMAC's one a few lessons. Just use expansion Eclipse of Nashira, not the base game.
Post by: bvanevery on November 07, 2018, 02:17:24 PM
OP choppers are near consensus on the forums, and many mods reduce their range.
Including mine. Reduced to 6 movement.
Quote
Disabling healing
That's not .txt moddable so I don't know the actual testable consequences of this.
Quote
and, especially, buffing defenders will promote bloody grinding and make the game less enjoyable.
Armor is slightly buffed in my mod. Armor in the original game is widely regarded to be pathetic to the point of uselessness. My solution is armor and weapons strengths are matched at every Tier of tech. So for instance, Silksteel Alloys and Nonlinear Mathematics are both Conquer 4 techs in my mod. The end result is a lot of the game gets played with low caliber weapons and armor, which is fine by me. There are other ways than raw weapon size to gain an advantage in battle, and my mod challenges the players to think somewhat about what those might be.
So, the consequences of "better armor" are fully testable right now, by playing my mod. I doubt that's going to relieve all AI concerns raised in this discussion, but it does improve things IMO. I also wouldn't make armor any stronger than I have. I think it's important to move discussion about armor out of the realm of conjecture and ground it in fact, i.e. play my mod before having more debate about armor.
Or hey really, about any of the combat stuff. Because when you change the fundamental pacing of the technology landscape, you don't have the same problems anymore. I'm sure there are still problems, as I'm only .txt modding, but I'd like to think I've gotten as far as one can without .exe patching. That's an important baseline IMO for "what should be done next". I don't see the point in discussions without such baselines. People have tried to fix a number of things over the years in various ways. Don't debate plain SMAC, debate from the delta of some mod.
Quote
Not mentioning balance bias to high-production players.
What's a "high production player" ? FWIW, only Domai gets an INDUSTRY bonus in my mod, and it's only +1. INDUSTRY is overpowered, and already assigned egregious bonuses by Transcend difficulty anyways. So I nerfed it a little.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 07, 2018, 03:13:57 PM
1) I agree there is some problem, although, IMHO, you overstate the scale of it. In theory, in the SMAC ruleset attackers aren't 100% indestructible. Especially needlejets and gravships, that after bombing run are sitting ducks waiting for enemy interceptors and SAM-capable ships/land units. If you provide fighter escort, it's just 1:1 slugfest at best in the enemy turn, and you need to produce and support bombers AND escorts. Similar counter-attackers exist for other types of attackers. Worst offenders here are attack choppers, that can deal massive damage and withdraw to relative safety in the same turn. OP choppers are near consensus on the forums, and many mods reduce their range. In general, I believe the issue is not in unit specs per se, but in AI inability to counter-attack properly, and hence the solution should be AI improvement and not rule change. Disabling healing and, especially, buffing defenders will promote bloody grinding and make the game less enjoyable. Not mentioning balance bias to high-production players. IMHO, of course.
2) This is obvious AI problem. I think, partly it can be explained by AI's desire to reduce splash damage to its attacking troops. Indeed, splash damage from defending artillery and losses in attackers' ranks is the best counter to concentration tactic. Once again, it's AI's fault, not ruleset's. However, even with current AI there are glimpses of hope - its artillery will start duels with yours if in range, its air will attack your exposed reinforcements nearing assembly point, and amassing of forces in one nearby base is a prompt for AI's nuke.
You should play the game Pandora: First Contact. Its tactical AI can teach SMAC's one a few lessons. Just use expansion Eclipse of Nashira, not the base game.
Thanks for feedback, PvtHudson. If you think you are arguing with me, you are not. In fact you are repeating all the same arguments just with other wording. Why we always discussing the wording??? Let's look at the big picture.
:D
I repeat myself: this is a gray area. The indestructible attackers is not an exploit that is there for all to take. Some number of conditions need to align so it starts to manifest itself. Yes, it is all conditional and "indestructible attacker" is not 100% indestructible. If you remember, I said near 100% winning chance, etc. There are a lot of ifs. Obviously, these conditions also include the defender inability to organize proper and active defense to equalize chances, etc. What I am saying is that as faction technology levels and economical powers diverge there will be point when attacking side suddenly stop incurring casualties! This happens sooner or later. I observed it in many games and many other people did too. It's a nature phenomenon which you cannot close you eyes on. You see two AI faction fighting for long long time. And for some (could be pretty long) time neither side cannot advance significantly. Then, suddenly, one side starts advancing their borders at a highest possible speed. Moving units to next enemy base takes longer than actually capturing it. Yea, destroying whole faction with large territory may actually take some 20-50 turns just to move your military units across it. So some people may get an illusion that this happens not instantly but it doesn't really matter - the fate of loser is already sealed. Even temporary truce is just a delay. What bothers me is that losing faction spent some time to populate territory, grow up bases, build facilities, terraform, and protect this all. Now other faction gets it for free. The explosive conquest territory advancement is even faster than populating unclaimed territory with own colonies. That leaves you with only viable strategy and this is what all this post is against.
I do not absolutely mind anyone taking enemy territory if they so decided. That is a strategy game after all. I argue that benefit/cost of this strategy should be comparable or less than the same of other viable strategies (expand, grow, build, trade, ...). Combined power of others should be able to stop faction growing large by eating others. Currently as you reach the point where you just cakewalk through enemy territory public opinion doesn't matter at all. Seriously, repeating same strategy every time is ridiculously boring. Almost every time when I grow big everybody starts hating me and declaring war. This doesn't scare me a bit. I gather my forces and go kill one faction completely leaving my other borders unprotected. Then I turn to next faction and so on. By the time I dealt with first faction other may capture few of my relatively unprotected bases but this is like a drop in a bucket. If they cannot take my territory fast enough I just turn to next one and they all are done.
Now without indestructible army I wont be able to walk through enemy territory with the same army at a unit movement speed. I keep losing units and even with my strong economy I need to build them again and replenish at a front line. It gives other enough time to take my unprotected territory. So I need to keep some active defenders-attackers around my border which thinners my invading army and lowers my attacking potential even more. Now I think thrice whether I want a war against everybody. Politics starts to matter.
In other words, at some point in vanilla strong faction conquers heavily protected enemy territory faster than other faction(s) conquer its own lightly protected territory. It tumbles strategical game into race game and I don't like it. Again. I am not arguing that it shouldn't be like that. Somebody may like it. I am just building a mod that I would like more and share it with others interested in same.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 07, 2018, 03:23:54 PM
That's not .txt moddable so I don't know the actual testable consequences of this.No, unfortunately. We discussed this many times already. I mention this as a better but hardly reachable option. Without it I'll try to achieve same goal with other txt moddable means.
Don't be modest. It is twice as strong and comparable to contemporary weapon strength.Quoteand, especially, buffing defenders will promote bloody grinding and make the game less enjoyable.Armor is slightly buffed in my mod.
;)
I actually think it's right and maybe it should be even slightly (20-30%) stronger that weapon to account for highly technologically advanced factions who will get better weapon anyway.
Post by: bvanevery on November 07, 2018, 04:27:40 PM
Don't be modest. It is twice as strong and comparable to contemporary weapon strength.
;)
Twice? No, that's exaggeration. When I made the change, the "attacking a base" scenario went from the attacker predictably winning, to the attacker dying and the defender barely alive. Which is fine, that says to me things are in balance. You should need more than 1 attacker to take out 1 defender in a base, all other things being equal.
Quote
I actually think it's right and maybe it should be even slightly (20-30%) stronger that weapon to account for highly technologically advanced factions who will get better weapon anyway.
When I play my mod, usually the only faction who becomes more advanced like that, is me. Caveat: the University, the Pirates, and the Morganites sometimes become more advanced, but not by much. Factions aren't racing out ahead of the player as far as I'm seeing it. Seems balanced.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 07, 2018, 04:59:51 PM
Twice? No, that's exaggeration.What are you talking about? Your best armor rating is same as best weapon one. And the rest of them is about 1:1. Comparing to 2:1 vanilla that's about twice.
Post by: bvanevery on November 07, 2018, 08:06:40 PM
Put another way, my mod had somewhat the flavor of the original game's weapons and armor progression for quite some time. For awhile I did not do anything explicitly to adjust this.
Used to be you'd crank up your Missile Marines and fry everyone with Doctrine: Initiative. Not anymore. You'll be poking along with Impact weapons. If you've got a Colonialist advantage, you'll be attacking various kinds of Plasma armor and you'll probably lose some Marines. If you don't have an advantage, you'll be attacking Silksteel - well until you decide you want to stop losing units.
The lore of the game is now off, because Missiles are mysteriously equivalent to Photon Walls. Sadly I can't change weapons artwork. Anything strength 6 has to look like a Missile. I could call it something else, but I don't think it's worth disrupting people's knowledge of the weapons of the game.
Post by: Geo on November 07, 2018, 10:10:50 PM
The lore of the game is now off, because Missiles are mysteriously equivalent to Photon Walls. Sadly I can't change weapons artwork. Anything strength 6 has to look like a Missile. I could call it something else, but I don't think it's worth disrupting people's knowledge of the weapons of the game.
You can rename the caviar files of a suitable looking weapon that you want to be at strength 6.
Post by: bvanevery on November 08, 2018, 12:09:05 AM
Post by: PvtHudson on November 08, 2018, 08:00:50 AM
Let's look at the big picture.Okay, now I finally comprehend the whole extent of the problem. Honestly, I don't think such a complex issue can be resolved only at combat odds level, not involving improvements in AI's tactics and diplomacy. Nonetheless, I wish you good luck with the mod.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 08, 2018, 02:05:20 PM
Thanks, man. Understanding is precious!Let's look at the big picture.Okay, now I finally comprehend the whole extent of the problem. Honestly, I don't think such a complex issue can be resolved only at combat odds level, not involving improvements in AI's tactics and diplomacy. Nonetheless, I wish you good luck with the mod.
I agree with you that overall bad AI performance in combat area is a complex issue which cannot be fixed by combat odds only. However, I didn't mean to discuss AI performance in this post at all. The question I am focusing on is very narrow and it applies equally to AI and human. Specifically, there are circumstances when building an invading army and conquer neighbors is cheaper (more effective) than building a defending army and protect against invaders. These circumstances happens in 99% of vanilla games and result in quick and unavoidable factions elimination. This very narrowly described problem is quite simple as it caused only by imbalance of invasion vs. protection effectiveness. Said effectiveness is pretty much a number = how much do I gain from action X. Either I fork some resources to build an invasion army and then capture some bases to contribute to my power or I just direct these extra resources to build and research. Combat odds and relative unit costs directly impact this number as they dictate the size of the army you need to achieve same goal. As a result, effectiveness of your actions changes proportionally. If you change it enough to put back into reasonable range - the problem is solved. Of course, it is more effective and elegant to do it with both exe and txt modding rather than just txt. I am working with txt now but I don't restrict myself with it. If results are unsatisfactory then I'll turn to exe maybe.
Post by: bvanevery on November 08, 2018, 02:25:48 PM
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 08, 2018, 07:55:54 PM
I am working with txt configuration and slowly approaching to the desired state. It seems playable but needs few more runs to get the feeling and see if it need to be tweaked at all. Let me reiterate that this is not a fully blown mod. This is a pretty narrow implementation targeting specific issue. It can be included or adopted by other mods in whole or in parts. I don't mind sharing as long as you give a feedback about an idea or implementation.
;)
Credits designers of following mods: Yutzi's, Scient, Binary Dawn, AI Growth, Thinker - where I've got some of my inspiration and ideas from.
Please bear with me as this is work in progress. I am going to split it to multiple posts since there are a lot of concepts to explain. So much for simple modification.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 08, 2018, 08:03:36 PM
Currently conquest victory is the fastest and easiest achievable out of them all by order of magnitude. I'd like to make it a lot harder to make other strategies viable. This means conquering enemy bases may still be a good move. Sometimes.
Factor in economical element into the war. Fully developed bases is a juicy prize. Conquering them should cost a lot so that economical-technological-political impact incurred by war outweighs benefit to the extent where global acquisition of another faction is not obviously best option.
Increase importance of other factors in influencing combat resolution as much as possible: Planet, Morale, attack and defense bonuses. That covers both faction-faction and native AI encounters.
Spread out military discoveries more evenly along the technology tree so that they appear at more or less adequate intervals - not too rare, not too often.
Make military units cost proportionally more to decrease army sizes and related mouse-clicks especially toward the end of the game.
Post by: bvanevery on November 08, 2018, 08:05:18 PM
Diplomatic Victory is abbreviated Conquest for the most part.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 08, 2018, 08:08:20 PM
Heh, no problemo, I'll look at it when you're ready. N.B. "Binary Dawn", "AI Growth", and "Thinker" are the names of mods, not the modders. I am bvanevery or Brandon Van Every, I'm ok with either.Yep. Bad wording again. Corrected. I explicitly wanted to list mods as many people know mod names better than mod authors.
Diplomatic Victory is abbreviated Conquest for the most part.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 08, 2018, 08:20:03 PM
I have devised some generic metrics for myself to see that my implementation matches initial idea more or less good. Whenever I estimate combat odds I assume weapon and armor are at about the same technology level and all other factors (Morale, Planet) are equal if not mentioned explicitly.
attacker to defender relative strength in different conditions
in open = about same or somewhat stronger - Since all other conditions favor defender I think attacker should shine somewhere.
in rough = about same or somewhat weaker - Rough terrain defense bonus should be significant enough to encourage its use.
in rough with sensor = at least half weaker - Building sensors takes time. This time should pay off by beefing up defender noticeably.
base = about the same - I don't really care about this. Of course, it is more stable state when you cannot take base with a single blow. However, I am more concerned about making prepared defense stronger. I'll leave this case for other to decide which way they prefer it.
base with sensor = about half weaker - Same consideration about building sensors.
base with sensor and perimeter = about three times weaker - Same consideration about time and minerals spent. Prepared defense should pay of and pay of well. That is invader should spend much more minerals attempting to penetrate defense comparing to the cost of defense.
Psi combat
Psi combat should have equal base odds regardless of realm. This way secondary factors like Morale, Planet, attack and defense bonuses play tremendous role and force player to chose SE models wiser. Free Market's -3 Planet now is really bad penalty. In other words, you still can tune you faction for psi combat but you have to make specific SE choices and pay the price.
Non trance base defenders should be able to sustain worm attack at least half of the time.
Equalizing psi combat odds also discourages free planet pearls farming. You still can do it but you need to beef up your units with Morale, Planet, or promotions to do it more effective. Without this you have about 50% chance to lose your unit when attacking natives.
Non combat units
Non combat units should be able to sustain worm attacks at least sometimes. Again player may additionally increase/decrease non combat units defense by consciously beefing up secondary combat parameters.
Unit cost (general considerations)
Adjust unit cost so that strongest available attacker/defender is built in about 4-10 turn in most productive bases throughout the game. With 20-40 minerals toward the end of the game building needlejet in one turn increases total number of active units and, therefore, mouse-clicks. Reducing number of actively moving units does not change relative balance of powers but allows player to appreciate each unit more.
It would also be nice if stronger unit costs proportionally more. This way it may be sometimes beneficial to produce weaker but still useful units for less.
Post by: bvanevery on November 08, 2018, 08:24:43 PM
If you are not married to providing the original content of SMAC (as I more or less am), consider taking the advanced factories out of the game.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 08, 2018, 08:27:31 PM
Free Market in the stock game is ridiculous. -8 in penalties! My regime for Politics, Economics, and Values choices is "3 bonuses, 2 penalties". You get -5 POLICE by choosing Democratic Free Market Knowledge Cybernetic. You have to work at it.I am with you on that, man. Didn't understand the context, though. I am not working with SE in this topic.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 08, 2018, 08:32:42 PM
I've created simple program that reads technology tree and calculates statistical average for each technology discovery sequence. That is if some technology has average sequence 4 then it is most often be discovered fourth. Of course, the deviations are huge but knowing the average is good anyway. See attached "ac.xlsx" spreadsheet, "SMAX weapon armor" worksheet. Item lists on the left for vanilla. Item lists on the right - my modifications. Top chart shows vanilla weapon/armor progression. Bottom chart - my modifications. Charts do not include special items with inbuilt abilities but tables are.
As you can see, vanilla progression is pretty not well distributed. Sometimes you have nothing for long time, sometimes they start coming in quick succession. My version is a little bit smoother. It should not be exactly like that. Anyone can tweak it a little bit to their liking by selecting different item triggering technologies. This exercise can be repeated for any modified tech tree as well.
An alternative approach taken in AI Growth mode is to hard chain military technologies to ensure strict item progression. Theoretically speaking, this is an ideal approach. However, I personally don't think it is an imperative to force the progression as long as it is so on average.
You can see my modifications for weapon/armor strength on the same worksheet lower chart. I kept weapon strength within the original range to keep their assigned pictures. I raised armor strength to keep up with corresponding contemporary weapon. This again is not mandatory and one could strengthen armor even more. However, I didn't want to do it to make sure attackers have a decent chance to take out unprotected defenders outside of bases.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 08, 2018, 08:43:57 PM
Have a look at my attached "unitcostcalculator.ods" worksheet where I tried different cost models. You can play with it too if you like.
Let me non-constructively whine here a little about unit cost formula.
It is simple impossible and soooooo broken. Every other rule that follows and tries to fix it breaks it even more. Few examples, just for fun. Pure speeder attacker costs 3 (three!) times more that same strength infantry. I understand speeder has its benefits but not at this price. Changing pure attacker armor from 1 to 2 suddenly makes it about 50-100% more costly. Pure defenders cost progression is quadratic with armor cost!!! This nonsense comes from special rule about minimal weapon. One would guess it was invented to force player to factor half decent attack into a pure defender for the same price. Pitiful attempt that failed. Now another rule nullifies this as even though this extra weapon is factored in the price already changing pure defender attack from 1 to 2 immediately bumps a price about 20% more! Enough of this.
In short, advice for novice players: don't build land mixed units (attack + defense) and don't build air armored units (obviously) - they are ridiculously expensive. I do not even bother to balance them in my adjustment. So only unit class I consider are: infantry defender, infantry attacker, speeder attacker, hovertank attacker, full packed sea units, air attackers.
Here are my attempts in balancing this class costs.
Attacker cost goes linear with weapon cost so the weapon cost should be proportional to strength. Defender cost goes quadratic with armor cost so the armor cost should slow down with armor rating.
Speeder should cost more than infantry but not by that much. To align them the only choice I had is to add 1 to chassis price of land units making them 2-3-4 for infantry-speeder-hovertank, respectively. That changed the cost of some non combat units too but it is easy to fix since most not combat units have their price slot in alphax.txt. Overall I made speeder price equal its weapon strength, infantry is 25% less and hovertank is 25% more than that. Seems good.
I've bumped needleject/copter chassis cost to 20 and gravship to 30. This makes fully armored ships cost about same as corresponding speeder-hovertank and needleject/copter now cost about the same too.
Overall with 1:1 weapon/armor ratio and with other defensive bonuses attacker would incur roughly 2-3 times more casualties. Which matches the goal of this changes.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 08, 2018, 08:51:22 PM
Other changes not explicitly related to the main goal but in line of combat balancing work.
I removed bunkers altogether, thanks to bvanevery (Brandon Van Every) advice and his observation that AI doesn't use them at all.
To compensate for that and to aid AI I increased sensor bonus to 50%. Automated formers eagerly build them and they have benefit of covering large area so AI shouldn't place their unit at specific location to get the bonus. Another plus is that sensor benefits only friendly units. Aha! Invader cannot abuse them. Together with this improved sensor I've achieved desired odds between attacker and defender with same rating of weapon and armor so their unmodified odds are 1:1.
infantry in open = 1.0
mobile in open = 1.2 (due to +25% mobile in open bonus)
in rough = 0.7 (terrain bonus)
in open with sensor = 0.7 (sensor bonus)
in rough with sensor = 0.4
infantry vs base = 1.0 (+25% each side)
infantry vs base with sensor = 0.7
infantry vs base with sensor and perimeter = 0.4
Looks like they align pretty well with initial goals.
I removed penalty for ship caught in port. I don't really understand this. Sea battles are insanely skewed toward attacker even more than land ones. The only active defense you can build in sea bases is air or sea units. And now this sea unit in base that suppose to be active defender is penalized??? P-lease.
Instead I reverted this penalty into +100% bonus for ship in port. Investing into active floating defender and keeping it in port should worth something. Now attacker needs to bring twice more units to knock this defender out.
I removed penalty for non combat units. Do not really understand why it was there. To make sure they die 100% at any encounter? Where is variety in that? Giving them some survival chance make every battle more interesting.
Bumped prototype cost to +100%. Vanilla number is a minor thing when you plan to build like 10 of a kind. Even my number is not that scary. I was thinking to raise it to +200% instead. This would slow down fast military technology adoption giving you a choice whether you want to prototype something new or keep up with old stuff. Also at this prototype cost rate skunkwork becomes a very important addition.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 08, 2018, 09:08:46 PM
Modified file is attached.
List of changes
Prototype cost increased.
100, ; Extra percentage cost of prototype LAND unit
100, ; Extra percentage cost of prototype SEA unit
100, ; Extra percentage cost of prototype AIR unit
Psi combat equalized.
1,1, ; Psi combat offense-to-defense ratio (LAND unit defending)
This one just taken from some other mod. Don't remember which.
50, ; Combat % -> Fanatic attack bonus
Removed penalty for non combat units.
0, ; Combat penalty % -> Non-combat unit defending vs. combat unit
Sensor improved.
50, ; Combat % -> Defend in range of friendly Sensor
Taken from some other mod. Feels like it makes sense.
15, ; Combat % -> Psi attack bonus/penalty per +PLANET
Chassis cost changed for infantry, speeder, hovertank, and air units except missile
#CHASSIS
Infantry,M1, Squad,M1, Sentinels,M2, Garrison,M1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 2, None, Shock Troops,M2, Elite Guard,M1,
Speeder,M1, Rover,M1, Defensive,M1, Skirmisher,M1,2, 0, 0, 0, 1, 3, Mobile, Dragon,M1, Enforcer,M1,
Hovertank,M1, Tank,M1, Skimmer,M1, Evasive,M1, 3, 0, 0, 0, 1, 4, NanoMin, Behemoth,M1, Guardian,M1,
Foil,M1, Skimship,M1, Hoverboat,M1, Coastal,M1, 4, 1, 0, 0, 2, 4, DocFlex, Megafoil,M1, Superfoil,M1,
Cruiser,M1, Destroyer,M1, Cutter,M1, Gunboat,M1, 6, 1, 0, 0, 4, 6, DocInit, Battleship,M1, Monitor,M1,
Needlejet,M1, Penetrator,M1, Interceptor,M1, Tactical,M1, 8, 2, 2, 0, 1,20, DocAir, Thunderbolt,M1, Sovereign,M1,
Copter,M1, Chopper,M1, Rotor,M1, Lifter,M1, 8, 2, 1, 0, 1,20, MindMac, Gunship,M1, Warbird,M1,
Gravship,M1, Skybase,M1, Antigrav,M1, Skyfort,M1, 8, 2, 0, 0, 1,30, Gravity, Deathsphere,M1, Doomwall,M1,
Missile,M1, Missile,M1, Missile,M1, Missile,M1, 12, 2, 1, 1, 0,12, Orbital, Missile,M1, Missile,M1,
Disabled rest of reactors.
#REACTORS
Fission Plant, Fission, 1, None,
Fusion Reactor, Fusion, 2, Disable, ;Fusion,
Quantum Chamber, Quantum, 3, Disable, ;Quantum,
Singularity Engine, Singularity, 4, Disable, ;SingMec,
Weapons changed drastically. Completely changed rating and cost. Triggering technologies also changed somewhere but I tried to reuse those existing as much as possible.
#WEAPONS
Hand Weapons, Gun, 1, 0, 1, -1, None,
Laser, Laser, 2, 0, 2, -1, Physic,
Particle Impactor, Impact, 4, 0, 4, -1, IndEcon,
Gatling Laser, Gatling, 5, 1, 5, -1, Chaos,
Missile Launcher, Missile, 6, 2, 6, -1, OptComp,
Chaos Gun, Chaos, 8, 0, 8, -1, Fossil,
Fusion Laser, Fusion, 10, 1,10, -1, String,
Tachyon Bolt, Tachyon, 12, 1,12, -1, Fusion,
Plasma Shard, Shard, 14, 2,14, -1, Unified,
Quantum Laser, Quantum, 16, 1,16, -1, Space,
Graviton Gun, Graviton, 20, 0,20, -1, Surface,
Singularity Laser, Singularity, 24, 1,24, -1, QuanMac,
Resonance Laser, R-Laser, 9, 1,11, -1, Bioadap,
Resonance Bolt, R-Bolt, 18, 1,22, -1, SentRes,
String Disruptor, String, 30, 1,30, -1, BFG9000,
Psi Attack, Psi, -1, 2,10, -1, CentPsi,
Planet Buster, Planet Buster, 99, 0,32, -1, Orbital,
Colony Module, Colony Pod, 0, 8,10, -1, None, ; Noncombat packages
Terraforming Unit, Formers, 0, 9, 6, -1, Ecology,
Troop Transport, Transport, 0, 7, 4, -1, DocFlex,
Supply Transport, Supply, 0,10,10, -1, IndAuto,
Probe Team, Probe Team, 0,11, 3, -1, PlaNets,
Alien Artifact, Artifact, 0,12,36, -1, Disable,
Conventional Payload, Conventional, 12, 0,12, -1, Orbital,
Tectonic Payload, Tectonic, 0,13,24, -1, NewMiss
Fungal Payload, Fungal, 0,14,24, -1, NewMiss
Armors changed drastically. Completely changed rating and cost. Triggering technologies also changed somewhere but I tried to reuse those existing as much as possible.
#DEFENSES
No Armor, Scout, 1, 0, 1, None,
Synthmetal Armor, Synthmetal, 2, 0, 2, Indust,
Plasma Steel Armor, Plasma, 5, 2, 5, Chemist,
Silksteel Armor, Silksteel, 7, 1, 6, Subat,
Photon Wall, Photon, 10, 1, 7, E=MC2,
Probability Sheath, Probability,14, 2, 8, SupLube,
Neutronium Armor, Neutronium, 18, 1, 9, IndRob,
Antimatter Plate, Antimatter, 22, 2,10, Quantum,
Stasis Generator, Stasis, 30, 2,12, TempMec,
Psi Defense, Psi, -1, 2, 6, Eudaim,
Pulse 3 Armor, 3-Pulse, 6, 1, 6, AdapDoc,
Resonance 3 Armor, 3-Res, 4, 1, 5, FldMod,
Pulse 8 Armor, 8-Pulse, 24, 1,11, Solids,
Resonance 8 Armor, 8-Res, 20, 1,10, SentRes,
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 08, 2018, 09:24:43 PM
Forgot to mention this aspect. Although it was actively discussed many times here and many people agree that they break the game. Thank you for all discussion contributors.
It is also unclear how it can be fixed and whether different reactor types need to be used in game at all. I don't have even slightest opinion on a matter. Therefore, I just disabled them until someone come up with bright idea.
Here is the short summary of reactor problems.
First, discovering new reactor make a huge impact to your army effectiveness. Much bigger than discovering new weapon/armor. For example, Fusion reactor get discovered around the time you have chaos gun strength 8. Next available weapon strength is 10 which gives you 2/8 = 25% weapon rating increase and the same on combat effectiveness. Whereas supplying your chaos gun units with Fusion reactor makes them twice as strong and twice as cheap. That translates to instantly quadrupling your combat effectiveness. No other technology has an effect that is even close to this.
Second, stupid unit cost formula cuts cost in half for each next reactor. That drops them 16 times for Singularity reactor. At the same time each new reactor raises minimal unit cost. So very soon the down slope of dropping unit cost meets upraising minimal cost. That makes all units cost the same sooner or later regardless of their strength and composition.
Post by: bvanevery on November 09, 2018, 12:06:32 AM
I am with you on that, man. Didn't understand the context, though. I am not working with SE in this topic.
Thought you were? This:
Psi combat
Psi combat should have equal base odds regardless of realm. This way secondary factors like Morale, Planet, attack and defense bonuses play tremendous role and force player to chose SE models wiser. Free Market's -3 Planet now is really bad penalty. In other words, you still can tune you faction for psi combat but you have to make specific SE choices and pay the price.
Post by: bvanevery on November 09, 2018, 12:21:15 AM
I've created simple program that reads technology tree and calculates statistical average for each technology discovery sequence.
I think it is not generally possible to give 1 statistical output for this. Whether any given tech is discovered with blind research, depends on the player's Explore, Discover, Build, Conquer settings. Taking 1, 2, or 3 foci at a time, and assuming no one in the real world chooses all 4, we get 4 + 6 + 4 = 14 different sets of weights applied to the values in the tree, to create likelyhood of what will be learned next. I'm not sure how the competing possibilities amongst "next available" techs are determined, as I have not studied the game's code. But I'm expecting a summation of probabilities of next available techs, a RNG from 0.0 to 1.0, then a looking up of the tech that fits the range.
Computing Directed Research is probably more straightforward. But it's only applicable to the Aliens. I don't know if faction personality affects research choice here. One could reasonably expect an Aggressive faction to choose a Conquer technology over a Build technology, other factors being equal, but I don't know if it's implemented that way.
If I have failed to understand your methodology, I apologize. I assume you are using an analytic, closed form solution to the problem. The alternative is a lot of empirical measurement of AI vs. AI test games. Which is still going to depend on the factions chosen, due to these same underlying differences of input.
Other skewing factors, worth mentioning, are the number of techs obtained by trade. Or theft. Or conquest of losers. Or conquest of a base, in the case of the Cybernetic Consciousness. Or bullying and threatening other factions. Or popping supply pods to obtain Tier 1 techs. Or a real human player cashing in Artifacts to get a free tech; the AI doesn't seem to be bright enough to do this.
An alternative approach taken in AI Growth mode is to hard chain military technologies to ensure strict item progression.
The drawback is it sacrifices the lore of the game. For instance, there's nothing rational about a Superconductor giving rise to a Missile Launcher. But I learned fairly early in my mod development, that lore was the least important consideration and had to be jettisoned when expedient. Gameplay is king. I've done the best I can to put the lore back into place when I could. But I make no bones about the fact that lore had to take a back seat, to do what needed to be done. I would never design a "from scratch" game around a tree or Directed Acyclic Graph of tech dependencies. It's a very fragile structure to weave lore around, easy to have everything get uprooted when something needs to be changed.
The advantage is I can strictly control the progressions in the face of the overwhelming variability of the game. I know that missile launchers are coming after gatling guns. And this is worth knowing, because the art assets for weapons cannot be readily changed, and already have meaning to experienced players. They know that a gatling gun is a "5", just as they know red colored armor is a "3".
Post by: bvanevery on November 09, 2018, 01:05:21 AM
In short, advice for novice players: don't build land mixed units (attack + defense)
It can make sense if you're trying to crack an enemy city that is heavily defended with artillery, and you don't want to bring in your own artillery. If you bring a mixed force of pure offensive infantry and pure defensive infantry, the pure offensive infantry are going to take enormous amounts of artillery splash damage and be rendered useless. Whereas, if you approach only with armored infantry, they will not. Not unless the artillery is way more powerful than the armor you're using.
Why wouldn't you bring your own artillery? Well, maybe the game is wonky this way, but artillery duels are deadly and cause huge splash damage to the loser. It might be safer to advance with no artillery at all.
These wonky mechanics and unit costs could be cleaned up in a new game. Don't know about with .exe patching of SMAC. I find myself more interested in figuring out how to get my existing mod in front of a lot more people, than in trying to perfect the .exe.
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and don't build air armored units (obviously) - they are ridiculously expensive.
In this game, air armor also isn't a factor in air combat. Although by rights it should be. The AC-10 "Warthog" is a well known American armored plane for use against ground targets. The Soviets used armored helicopters in Afghanistan.
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To align them the only choice I had is to add 1 to chassis price of land units making them 2-3-4 for infantry-speeder-hovertank, respectively.
Well you can choose even higher integers, of course. They need merely be monotonically ascending. It's just a question of how nuts you're going to drive yourself, changing the costs of everything. I drove myself pretty nuts merely tweaking the values for the missile chassis. It was pure trial and error until the numbers came out right.
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That changed the cost of some non combat units too but it is easy to fix since most not combat units have their price slot in alphax.txt.
Not true. Predefined units don't exist for things like Fungicidal Formers, Super Formers, Super Fungicidal Formers, Foil vs. Cruiser variants, and different reactors put on them. All of these are dynamically designed by the game, or by you the human player. There is no method in the standard game to specify a reactor size for a predefined unit, a real problem I've run into recently. I just happened to read that Scient's patch version 2.0 has that feature. However, I'm not currently prepared to require Scient's patch or any other patches. Especially, the more and more I get out on YouTube looking for ways to push my work, the more I'm realizing there are people who have never played SMAC before. Asking them to try my mod is already a lot to ask. Really need slicker installers and packagers and downloaders to handle this sort of problem... but first has to come something even more basic, getting more people playing the friggin' game.
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Overall I made speeder price equal its weapon strength, infantry is 25% less and hovertank is 25% more than that.
Huge issue is when you get hovertanks. They come absurdly late game in the original game, so who really cares what they're priced at then. In my mod, I put them on Tier 4. These things are gonna get used. They move 50% faster than a Speeder, so they should cost 50% more. Unless it's going to be the "once you get it, you win" technology.
Post by: bvanevery on November 09, 2018, 01:54:08 AM
To compensate for that and to aid AI I increased sensor bonus to 50%.
Interesting to see how that turns out. I've often stressed about whether I should knock out Sensor Arrays before beginning an assault. Usually I default to not doing so, because that's going to be my base in a minute. But if I really feel I've brought a marginal force in, I take out the Sensors.
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I removed penalty for ship caught in port. I don't really understand this. Sea battles are insanely skewed toward attacker even more than land ones.
I guess I should watch some sea battles to verify how this works. Also I wonder if ranged ship battles, with ship artillery, are different from direct attack ship battles.
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The only active defense you can build in sea bases is air or sea units.
You can build or place infantry there. The Command Nexus is actually very useful to a maritime power, because you don't feel obligated to transport better garrison units in from anywhere. The other reason you typically want land units, is they're the only ones that can have Police power. Although I think in SMAC not SMACX, Needlejets may have also counted? I haven't checked on this lately. I don't build many air units lately, I tend to overrun with Formers and mag tube lines.
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And now this sea unit in base that suppose to be active defender is penalized??? P-lease.
Are you sure that a sea base counts as a port? A port might be a land base. I'm not sure the distinction is entirely rational... I mean, a base in Louisiana could be a "port" city. But if there's a distinction, then fighting from sea bases wouldn't actually be a problem.
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Instead I reverted this penalty into +100% bonus for ship in port.
Um, now the winning exploit is to put bases on coastal land and stock them with ships. No logic in that at all.
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I removed penalty for non combat units. Do not really understand why it was there.
Because if I'm armed with lasers and bombs and you are not, you should probably die pretty quickly. Of course, recently we've had the big discussion about the definition of "Noncombat" being kind of borked. If you put armor on a Probe Team, Former, or Supply Crawler, it becomes a Combat unit. The Noncombat penalty does not apply.
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To make sure they die 100% at any encounter?
With unarmored probe teams, I think that was exactly the idea. They probably had a collision of game mechanics, and chose this as a way out of too much complication. They wanted to equate discovery with death. For probe teams, that's entirely reasonable.
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Where is variety in that? Giving them some survival chance make every battle more interesting.
I've heard many historical complaints that "walls of armored Formers or Supply Crawlers" is not interesting, it's an abuse / exploit. Careful what you wish for, when you say you want things "interesting". But the point is moot, because armored Formers and Supply Crawlers become combat units anyways.
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Bumped prototype cost to +100%.
Reasonable. I didn't change that, but I did make a Skunkworks substantially more expensive to build and maintain. It's equivalent to a Research Hospital in cost now. My idea is you will build one of these things. Maybe 2 if you're feeling really spendy. The typical problem is your Skunkworks base gets busy building something, like your 1st nuke, and then something else comes along that you wanted to build in a Skunkworks.
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I was thinking to raise it to +200% instead. This would slow down fast military technology adoption giving you a choice whether you want to prototype something new or keep up with old stuff.
But if that's a false choice, meaning that it's inevitable you must have the better performing technology to survive, then you've only created tedium for the player. Or taken productivity away from the AI, as it will make this choice.
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Also at this prototype cost rate skunkwork becomes a very important addition.
It's not at the easiest place in my tech tree. If I had prototype costs that egregious, it would have to come earlier. I currently have it at Tier 4, in Industrial Automation, along with Supply Crawlers. Tier 4 seems to be late midgame in my mod nowadays. That's because I've pushed so many of the "interesting" techs to earlier in the game, like Marines and Cloaking Devices. Less straightforward weapon and armor buffs, more tactical alternatives.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 09, 2018, 02:13:34 AM
I'm not discussing a modification to SE here. Can use SE effect as an examples. That's it.I am with you on that, man. Didn't understand the context, though. I am not working with SE in this topic.
Thought you were? This:Psi combat
Psi combat should have equal base odds regardless of realm. This way secondary factors like Morale, Planet, attack and defense bonuses play tremendous role and force player to chose SE models wiser. Free Market's -3 Planet now is really bad penalty. In other words, you still can tune you faction for psi combat but you have to make specific SE choices and pay the price.
Post by: bvanevery on November 09, 2018, 02:28:47 AM
Psi combat equalized.
1,1, ; Psi combat offense-to-defense ratio (LAND unit defending)
This is a dramatic change. It means that piles of mindworms heading for your bases, aren't going to bother you much. A mindworm apocalypse just became a lot more survivable. It also means, you will have trouble fishing in the fungus for planet pearls. I wonder if it's going to penalize +PLANET factions when they try to capture wild mindworms? Usually you just catch or kill the next one with your own healed up mindworm. If you actually have to worry about losing your mindworm in the exchange, that's a problem.
Your change is also lore destroying. :D
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This one just taken from some other mod. Don't remember which.
50, ; Combat % -> Fanatic attack bonus
I need to research how this compared to MORALE boosts. You might have just made the Believers tougher than the Spartans when they are on offense. I would consider that a fail.
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Taken from some other mod. Feels like it makes sense.[/quote]
15, ; Combat % -> Psi attack bonus/penalty per +PLANET
Well I guess you'll see if this makes mindworms a doomsday weapon or not.
I gave Deirdre a unique PSI, 20 combat advantage, so that she would not be strictly inferior to the Cult of Planet. I also took the Cult's free brood pits away. I cheapened the cost of all mindworms, I believe that was PvtHudson's idea. However, I also made Trance a non-free ability.
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Disabled rest of reactors.
Your unit designs are going to get stuffed to the brim, but otherwise it's a perfectly reasonable way to design. I just couldn't give up the reactors because I'm trying to please fans of the original game. Planet Busters need their different tips on them! I'd like to be able to separate missile tips from unit durability.
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Missile Launcher, Missile, 6, 2, 6, -1, OptComp,
You get a lore destroying prize for this one. :D
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Chaos Gun, Chaos, 8, 0, 8, -1, Fossil,
and this. Morgan prattling on about fossil fuels is a complete fail lore wise. :D More seriously, there's a reason I totally reclassified all these techs into more pure Explore, Discover, Build, Conquer categories. Lore wasn't a primary reason, but it's a contributing one.
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Resonance Laser, R-Laser, 9, 1,11, -1, Bioadap,
Bioadaptive Resonance is a relatively early tech. Guess I'll have to see what else you did, as to whether a powerful gun like that is properly placed. Hope you remembered to change the Battle Ogre MK1 that has this gun by default. Handing Aliens a strength 9 weapon at the start of the game seems like a fail. I went the other way, nerfed it to strength 2, but I also took away Alien starting armor. Still enough to take out the Scouts everybody has, and it's got its armor. Mindworms kill these things easily though, even with all the buffs I gave the MK1.
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Plasma Steel Armor, Plasma, 5, 2, 5, Chemist,Pulse 3 Armor, 3-Pulse, 6, 1, 6, AdapDoc,
Resonance 3 Armor, 3-Res, 4, 1, 5, FldMod,[/quote]
I thought about spreading out the strengths of the "red" armors, but I thought it might mess too much with people's sense of armor value. Could be a lotta "doh!" from players, asking them to check on attacker's numerical/letter ratings to determine whether to attack or not. User unfriendly, I figured. Not sure if all these armors use the same art asset or different assets. There is a texture modding tool for the 3D file format. I've never used it, but theoretically it could be used to recolor armor. Violet and orange armor might be appropriate proximate colors. Especially with Synthemetal as a sequence base: blue, red-violet, red, red-orange.
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Pulse 8 Armor, 8-Pulse, 24, 1,11, Solids,
Resonance 8 Armor, 8-Res, 20, 1,10, SentRes,
You should rename these if they're not actually strength 3, strength 8 anymore.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 09, 2018, 02:32:15 AM
Yep. There are multitude ways to distribute military items in given technology tree. No need to apologize. Some are better.I've created simple program that reads technology tree and calculates statistical average for each technology discovery sequence.I think it is not generally possible to give 1 statistical output for this.
If I have failed to understand your methodology, I apologize.
1. You essentially can just stick them into tree without thinking. That's bad.
2. You can eyeball it. A little better.
3. You can assign each technology a level and then eyeball it. A little better.
4. You can run blind research simulation and get a better understanding of technology level. That what I did.
5. Finally, you can gather real statistics from thousands of games to get more precise version of #4. Nobody is going to do it anyway.
I guess you meant to amend my method #4 by introducing some preference variables. That may work and make it a little better. However, I wouldn't bother with it as neither of these methods is precise anyway. I did mine just because it was easy to do (a matter of minutes) and it gave me feeling of slight improvement over #3. That's it.
I actually think your approach better if strict succession is imperative. I just don't know if said strict succession is crucial for playability. I would guess not.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 09, 2018, 02:38:47 AM
Hm. Interesting scenario. I didn't think about it. You mean attackers will be significantly weakened just one turn they are approaching the base? Well, then you need to modify the tactics or strategy or build mixed units. They'll cost the hell more than just sum of pure attacker and pure defender.In short, advice for novice players: don't build land mixed units (attack + defense)
It can make sense if you're trying to crack an enemy city that is heavily defended with artillery, and you don't want to bring in your own artillery. If you bring a mixed force of pure offensive infantry and pure defensive infantry, the pure offensive infantry are going to take enormous amounts of artillery splash damage and be rendered useless. Whereas, if you approach only with armored infantry, they will not. Not unless the artillery is way more powerful than the armor you're using.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 09, 2018, 02:42:14 AM
QuoteThat changed the cost of some non combat units too but it is easy to fix since most not combat units have their price slot in alphax.txt.
Not true. Predefined units don't exist for things like Fungicidal Formers, Super Formers, Super Fungicidal Formers, Foil vs. Cruiser variants, and different reactors put on them. All of these are dynamically designed by the game, or by you the human player. There is no method in the standard game to specify a reactor size for a predefined unit, a real problem I've run into recently. I just happened to read that Scient's patch version 2.0 has that feature. However, I'm not currently prepared to require Scient's patch or any other patches. Especially, the more and more I get out on YouTube looking for ways to push my work, the more I'm realizing there are people who have never played SMAC before. Asking them to try my mod is already a lot to ask. Really need slicker installers and packagers and downloaders to handle this sort of problem... but first has to come something even more basic, getting more people playing the friggin' game.
Good point. I didn't think about that. Let me review how badly my changes is going to affect them.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 09, 2018, 02:44:37 AM
QuoteOverall I made speeder price equal its weapon strength, infantry is 25% less and hovertank is 25% more than that.
Huge issue is when you get hovertanks. They come absurdly late game in the original game, so who really cares what they're priced at then. In my mod, I put them on Tier 4. These things are gonna get used. They move 50% faster than a Speeder, so they should cost 50% more. Unless it's going to be the "once you get it, you win" technology.
Good point too. I probably should make them a little bit more expensive like +50%.
Post by: bvanevery on November 09, 2018, 02:47:29 AM
Why do we waste time discussing small inconsistencies in phrases?Well I think we've worked that out now. I think we agree to discuss whatever, and not see things as some huge big deal.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 09, 2018, 02:47:42 AM
To compensate for that and to aid AI I increased sensor bonus to 50%.
Interesting to see how that turns out. I've often stressed about whether I should knock out Sensor Arrays before beginning an assault. Usually I default to not doing so, because that's going to be my base in a minute. But if I really feel I've brought a marginal force in, I take out the Sensors.
Yes. Sensors can be destroyed. That's an element of the war. Sometimes you can, sometimes you cannot. Especially if they are deep behind the base. What's you gonna do? That's the game and tactics as it is.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 09, 2018, 02:49:49 AM
QuoteI removed penalty for ship caught in port. I don't really understand this. Sea battles are insanely skewed toward attacker even more than land ones.
I guess I should watch some sea battles to verify how this works. Also I wonder if ranged ship battles, with ship artillery, are different from direct attack ship battles.
The "ship in port" penalty is only when non sea unit attacks ship in base. So ship to ship duel is unaltered.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 09, 2018, 03:00:04 AM
Psi combat equalized.
1,1, ; Psi combat offense-to-defense ratio (LAND unit defending)
This is a dramatic change. It means that piles of mindworms heading for your bases, aren't going to bother you much. A mindworm apocalypse just became a lot more survivable. It also means, you will have trouble fishing in the fungus for planet pearls. I wonder if it's going to penalize +PLANET factions when they try to capture wild mindworms? Usually you just catch or kill the next one with your own healed up mindworm. If you actually have to worry about losing your mindworm in the exchange, that's a problem.
Your change is also lore destroying. :D
The hell with the lore. Playability is the king!
I've already played few of my games with 1:1 psi combat. Feels pretty good. At least I am not blindly poke fungus with every one of my units. I either chose promoted or bump Morale/Planet or hide in bases and build more defenders if I am on Free Market, etc. The nature of the game stays the same but it become more filled with decisions and thinking.
In short, I become more cautious about waking up worms but my colony pods sometimes survive sudden native attack. Just a slight shift in feeling and tactics. To better, I guess.
Post by: bvanevery on November 09, 2018, 03:13:40 AM
I guess you meant to amend my method #4 by introducing some preference variables. That may work and make it a little better. However, I wouldn't bother with it as neither of these methods is precise anyway. I did mine just because it was easy to do (a matter of minutes) and it gave me feeling of slight improvement over #3. That's it.
Aren't you afraid of GIGO? How can you make any determination about anything, if you are not modeling the way blind research actually works in the game?
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I actually think your approach better if strict succession is imperative. I just don't know if said strict succession is crucial for playability. I would guess not.
What actually tends to happen in the original game, is you get rapid spurts of pointless weapon improvements. Oh look, it's the strength 10 weapon. Now the Strength 12. Now the (ridiculous!) strength 13. Except they don't actually all come in that order anyways, they sort of jumble around. So you often get the 13 first. I guess you could think of it as the "10 to 13 pointless cluster" of weapons. It clutters my Unit Design Workshop and has no other gameplay value. I got rid of that.
There's just a lot of goofiness of weapons and armor jumping around in the original game. And imbalance. Strength 8 Chaos guns going against strength 3 Plasma armor is very common in the stock game. Add Fusion reactors and oh goody.
Another philosophy of the stock game that I oppose, is "every faction gets their turn having a reward". No! Deirdre gets mindworms, she should not be getting a strength 6 missile launcher from Synthetic Fossil Fuels! It's stupid! Morgan's Silksteel Alloys isn't as bad, because at least it's defensive. He's presumed to be turtling up and building in a Free Market. The Civ equivalent is building Phalanxes, then Musketeers.
Your imperfect simulation is almost right for the wrong reasons. I see full evidence of a lot of random crap in the stock game. There's a pretty big window that the pass filter of random crap falls over, as the tech tree progresses in time. It approaches the point of being unstructured, which means random stuff tips the balance of power one way or the other. I prefer a game that is cogent and understandable, because then I can tweak that design. I believe the tweaking is where design quality actually comes from. The opposing "design" is "hey here's a bunch of random crap. Deal with it!" Well you might get a satisfying experience out of that randomness, or you might get a stupid frustrating one. I'm not really into rolling the dice on whether a player is going to enjoy the game or not.
Like how are you even going to achieve what you want out of your "weapons and armor to create strategy" progressions, if you allow so much random noise to enter the calculation? "This game I got lucky and tore everything up." Wow, what a game design. Not saying you've done this, I'm saying this is what "throw it over the fence" designers do. They put their faith in random numbers, in the players themselves... it's stupid. It's like crowd sourcing a screenplay or a novel, doesn't work.
How do you verify? Do you play your mod a few times and think / hope you improved things, letting your own cognitive biases take over?
When you get a game in front of other players, at least they might tell you whether you're meeting your stated design objectives or not.
One of my objectives for instance is improving the perceived competence of the AI's performance. I hope I achieved that. A few players said I achieved that, so that encourages my hope in that area. But even with those encouragements, I've had such a small testing audience, it's not so easy to say. I know I haven't made a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 09, 2018, 03:13:59 AM
QuoteResonance Laser, R-Laser, 9, 1,11, -1, Bioadap,
Bioadaptive Resonance is a relatively early tech.
Look at my estimate. It has index of 32 out of 85 which is about 40% down the line. It's more like middle, not early one. On average you get it even after Fossil. Based on this it is placed right.
I forgot about Ogre equipped with this weapon, though. Well this is a first draft there be a lot of misses. We can think how to deal with it later or just swap it for some earlier technology and lower the strength.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 09, 2018, 03:17:17 AM
Hm. I always turn on combat odds confirmation dialog and can clearly see all battle parameters starting with weapon/armor and down to all modifiers. Then I decide whether attack or not. Never bothered color guessing armor.QuotePlasma Steel Armor, Plasma, 5, 2, 5, Chemist,Pulse 3 Armor, 3-Pulse, 6, 1, 6, AdapDoc,
Resonance 3 Armor, 3-Res, 4, 1, 5, FldMod,
I thought about spreading out the strengths of the "red" armors, but I thought it might mess too much with people's sense of armor value. Could be a lotta "doh!" from players, asking them to check on attacker's numerical/letter ratings to determine whether to attack or not. User unfriendly, I figured.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 09, 2018, 03:19:07 AM
Good idea. I didn't touch much these special items yet. Can I just rename them in file?QuotePulse 8 Armor, 8-Pulse, 24, 1,11, Solids,
Resonance 8 Armor, 8-Res, 20, 1,10, SentRes,
You should rename these if they're not actually strength 3, strength 8 anymore.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 09, 2018, 03:32:17 AM
I guess you meant to amend my method #4 by introducing some preference variables. That may work and make it a little better. However, I wouldn't bother with it as neither of these methods is precise anyway. I did mine just because it was easy to do (a matter of minutes) and it gave me feeling of slight improvement over #3. That's it.
Aren't you afraid of GIGO? How can you make any determination about anything, if you are not modeling the way blind research actually works in the game?
Sorry, I didn't understand what I should be afraid of? I can even share my code to show how did I do it. In short, there are some number of technologies available for research. So I randomly pick one and "research" it. That changes list of available technologies and so the cycle continues until all are researched. I run this many times and gather statistics for each technology at which step it was researched. Then I averaged it and this is my average sequence number for given technology.
This is not how blind research actually works in the game, you are right. Again, I chose wrong word. I should say random research assuming any available technology can be researched on next step. I don't think modeling blind research mechanics exactly would do cause any significant change but I am willing to try if anyone give me a procedure how it works.
Post by: bvanevery on November 09, 2018, 03:36:18 AM
The hell with the lore. Playability is the king!
This is true, in my design universe at least. However, I do advocate looking for opportunities to repurpose lore, rather than just ignore it. I've "harvested" various technologies in the tree to use for something else. "Frictionless Surfaces" for instance, has the Deirdre voice narrator going on about a Morganic researcher who talks about tricking substances into hiding from themselves. For quite awhile I used this as a basis for Clean Reactors, because I didn't need a Cloaking Device to be living in its own tech. I put that in with Photon Walls, figuring hey, you're manipulating light, should be able to get a cloak out of that. So then I changed it to "Single-Sided Surfaces" and pretended that a Clean Reactor is something you get from a Klein bottle of containment.
Although recently, I threw Clean Reactor into Bio-Engineering, where it originally came from! But that tech has moved around a lot over all these iterations, so it's only happy accident that it has landed close to where it started out. Longevity Vaccine stays at Eudaimonia, which is Tier 6 in my mod and expected as a viable SE choice for 1/2 the game, so it's not exactly the same Bio-Engineering.
Anyways Cloaking Device is now in Single-Sided Surfaces, which I could restore to Frictionless Surfaces. But I won't, because my version of the tech name has grown on me, and I might prevaricate again. It's like my little thumb print in the clay of this world.
I also have Phasers. Renamed Fusion Lasers. I realized the other day that if you acronymed that, you'd get FLASER, very similar in pronunciation to Phaser. So I decided to keep Phaser. And of course the real reason, is I'm paying homage to Star Trek TOS. Back when weapons were weapons and everybody had one!
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I've already played few of my games with 1:1 psi combat. Feels pretty good.
Ok, I'll suspend judgment until I've seen it in action. As a +PLANET faction. You might have crippled the Gaians, but what if you've only changed their play style? Maybe this is the new defensive unit to bring to the enemy's front door.
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At least I am not blindly poke fungus with every one of my units.
This is the thing. You've worried a lot about players doing this. Do you think it's something lots of players do? Or is it just something you did a lot of?
I've poked fungus as Chairman Yang, in order to work up the 40 credits necessary to switch to Police State. Then I stop, because I got what I want.
Usually when I've poked fungus, it's because my mindworms got stuck on an island somewhere, with no Transport to get them anywhere else. They could be there for 100 years! In past games I've marched them around for the entire time, to stir up more recruits. I have not gotten any vast yield for the effort spent. And for the mouseclicking effort spent, my real life work as a player, I think it's ok if I get something out of it. I certainly didn't get anything game breaking out of it.
The exploration money is not in mindworm harvesting. It's in popping supply pods. I've gone through vast cycles of AAR writing where I did no supply pods at all. Too much of an easy crutch to victory.
I've never captured a highly effective army of mindworms. They've managed to harass long distance enemy cities, that's about it. They tend to die off. They're much more effective when brought home for defense. They can really mess up an interloper coming over a patch of fungus.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 09, 2018, 03:42:40 AM
QuoteI actually think your approach better if strict succession is imperative. I just don't know if said strict succession is crucial for playability. I would guess not.
What actually tends to happen in the original game, is you get rapid spurts of pointless weapon improvements. Oh look, it's the strength 10 weapon. Now the Strength 12. Now the (ridiculous!) strength 13. Except they don't actually all come in that order anyways, they sort of jumble around. So you often get the 13 first. I guess you could think of it as the "10 to 13 pointless cluster" of weapons. It clutters my Unit Design Workshop and has no other gameplay value. I got rid of that.
There's just a lot of goofiness of weapons and armor jumping around in the original game. And imbalance. Strength 8 Chaos guns going against strength 3 Plasma armor is very common in the stock game. Add Fusion reactors and oh goody.
Another philosophy of the stock game that I oppose, is "every faction gets their turn having a reward". No! Deirdre gets mindworms, she should not be getting a strength 6 missile launcher from Synthetic Fossil Fuels! It's stupid! Morgan's Silksteel Alloys isn't as bad, because at least it's defensive. He's presumed to be turtling up and building in a Free Market. The Civ equivalent is building Phalanxes, then Musketeers.
Your imperfect simulation is almost right for the wrong reasons. I see full evidence of a lot of random crap in the stock game. There's a pretty big window that the pass filter of random crap falls over, as the tech tree progresses in time. It approaches the point of being unstructured, which means random stuff tips the balance of power one way or the other. I prefer a game that is cogent and understandable, because then I can tweak that design. I believe the tweaking is where design quality actually comes from. The opposing "design" is "hey here's a bunch of random crap. Deal with it!" Well you might get a satisfying experience out of that randomness, or you might get a stupid frustrating one. I'm not really into rolling the dice on whether a player is going to enjoy the game or not.
Like how are you even going to achieve what you want out of your "weapons and armor to create strategy" progressions, if you allow so much random noise to enter the calculation? "This game I got lucky and tore everything up." Wow, what a game design. Not saying you've done this, I'm saying this is what "throw it over the fence" designers do. They put their faith in random numbers, in the players themselves... it's stupid. It's like crowd sourcing a screenplay or a novel, doesn't work.
How do you verify? Do you play your mod a few times and think / hope you improved things, letting your own cognitive biases take over?
When you get a game in front of other players, at least they might tell you whether you're meeting your stated design objectives or not.
One of my objectives for instance is improving the perceived competence of the AI's performance. I hope I achieved that. A few players said I achieved that, so that encourages my hope in that area. But even with those encouragements, I've had such a small testing audience, it's not so easy to say. I know I haven't made a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
Totally agree with your approach. Very well put.
Let me reiterate that I do not insist on having it my way. I can as well work it out of your tree easily. May got even better results. Keep in mind that I did not focus on enhancing tree per se. I just wanted to illustrate the technique of how items can be a little better distributed on any tree. So certainly, combining this approach with well thought tree may bring even better results.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 09, 2018, 03:56:42 AM
QuoteI've already played few of my games with 1:1 psi combat. Feels pretty good.
Ok, I'll suspend judgment until I've seen it in action. As a +PLANET faction. You might have crippled the Gaians, but what if you've only changed their play style? Maybe this is the new defensive unit to bring to the enemy's front door.
I think it is quite opposite. Check out the discussion about SMAC combat outcome skew. The closer you are to 50% winning probability the more important are small changes. When you are at 3:2 odds you wins near 100% of the cases regardless of other small modifiers. So it doesn't matter whether you are +1 or -1 on PLANET. When you are at 1:1 odds, any strength modification quintuples!!! So shifting initial balance of psi combat to 1:1 actually improves Gaian's winning chances by 50% comparing to factions without this benefit. That was my whole point.
:)
Post by: bvanevery on November 09, 2018, 04:35:43 AM
Sorry, I didn't understand what I should be afraid of?
GIGO = Garbage In, Garbage Out. An old engineering acronym, I think.
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So I randomly pick one and "research" it. That changes list of available technologies and so the cycle continues until all are researched.
This is not how either blind research or directed research works in the game. Research probability is weighted by dot product (Conquer Discover Build Explore) * (power tech wealth growth) for the given tech. Choosing Conquer is going to make a huge difference for gaining weapons, for instance. This is part of why Santiago is going to kill Morgan in the stock game.
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I don't think modeling blind research mechanics exactly would do cause any significant change
I predict your conclusions on research frequencies are currently very wrong, as a matter of what factions will actually gain. And that the only way you can actually verify whether your approximation is sufficient, is to do the exact calculation and compare it.
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but I am willing to try if anyone give me a procedure how it works.
Dot product to get the weights. Add up all the weights of available techs, that's your denominator. (weight / total weights) = probability of this particular tech. RNG in the range 0.0 to 1.0, map it to the weights somehow. Most straightforward is probably is to loop through the available techs, accumulating a sum, until the sum is >= the RNG. Potential endpoint error of 0th or Nth tech left as exercise to the programmer.
Directed research is just find the highest valued weight. In case of a tie, choose. Random choice might be better than building in any kind of list order bias.
This stuff is exactly what Induktio and I had a big fight about a few months back BTW. I've spent a lot of time working on these weights.
If you only care about how the 14 stock factions behave, then you only need to look at the unique EDBC weights offered by those factions, plus whatever a real human player is likely to do.
Explore - Gaians
Discover - University
Build - Morganites, Free Drones
Explore, Discover - Peacekeepers, Cybernetic Consciousness
Explore, Conquer - Believers, Cult of Planet, Pirates
Discover, Build - Data Angels
Discover, Conquer - Spartans
Build, Conquer - Hive, Usurpers
Explore, Discover, Conquer - Caretakers
Interestingly, nobody uses a pure Conquer strategy in the stock game. The Spartans and Usurpers do in my mod. Personally I think that choice is important because a real human player will probably make it at some point. Nobody happens to choose Explore, Build either. Humans will do it though, it's typical to pick either 1 or 2 research foci in practice. I think it would be reasonable to ignore the Caretaker way of doing things; they're doing directed research anyways. So for blind research, that's 10 cases to analyze.
Additional corner case: if all weights after dot product are 0, then I'm supposing one of the next available techs is chosen at random. Ironically, this corner case is what you're currently modeling. Although, available techs might not be considered equally valuable even then. Could add up the (power tech wealth growth) weights. That's equivalent to dot product with Explore=1, Discover=1, Build=1, Conquer=1. EDBC choice is just a mask over the weights, that's another way of looking at it.
It is really an open question to me, whether all this machinery for the Blind Research game mechanic, is "worth it". It certainly is esoteric from a mod maintenance standpoint. How many people are going to get that deep into the weeds? For a new game, I would think of something else. If you do this statistical analysis, I'd be mildly interested in how same or different these tech trees actually look, under the various weights. Maybe it matters, or maybe it's a variation of the thousand bowls of oatmeal problem. Parametric distinctions without enough of a difference to justify them.
Post by: bvanevery on November 09, 2018, 05:02:26 AM
So shifting initial balance of psi combat to 1:1 actually improves Gaian's winning chances by 50% comparing to factions without this benefit. That was my whole point.
:)
That doesn't make sense. 2:1 favors offense with psi, not Gaians. Gaians will be on offense or defense in any given situation. If they are trying to trash other factions, you've taken away their teeth. Trashing someone is an important way to defend yourself. The Romans were famous for just gradually wearing down opponents that couldn't do anything about them. I've done that to all kinds of AI factions myself. Hold, hold, hold, until you sense that they're not managing to supply enough units anymore. They've spent themselves on your walls, fruitlessly. Now push.
Well, you may have an overall preference for "WW I trench warfare stalemate" as the way Civs should develop. We'll see. It'll all depend on how it actually plays.
One of my major concerns, is whether the AI is written with the embedded assumption that mindworms are strong on offense, weak on defense. I don't know that it is, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is. This sort of issue can derail your plans. All you can do is test and find out.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 09, 2018, 12:14:33 PM
Quotebut I am willing to try if anyone give me a procedure how it works.
Dot product to get the weights. Add up all the weights of available techs, that's your denominator. (weight / total weights) = probability of this particular tech. RNG in the range 0.0 to 1.0, map it to the weights somehow. Most straightforward is probably is to loop through the available techs, accumulating a sum, until the sum is >= the RNG. Potential endpoint error of 0th or Nth tech left as exercise to the programmer.
Directed research is just find the highest valued weight. In case of a tie, choose. Random choice might be better than building in any kind of list order bias.
If you only care about how the 14 stock factions behave, then you only need to look at the unique EDBC weights offered by those factions, plus whatever a real human player is likely to do.
Explore - Gaians
Discover - University
Build - Morganites, Free Drones
Explore, Discover - Peacekeepers, Cybernetic Consciousness
Explore, Conquer - Believers, Cult of Planet, Pirates
Discover, Build - Data Angels
Discover, Conquer - Spartans
Build, Conquer - Hive, Usurpers
Explore, Discover, Conquer - Caretakers
Interesting. Sure I can try that - piece of cake. Just didn't follow your explanation exactly to the letter. Is it published somewhere on the Net?
I can keep adding factors but there still be much more factors to it. Like below
There is a special formula controlling whether a technology ready to be researched is actually appearing in the list of available technologies. About 1/3 of the time they do not.
Factions also quite often acquire technologies other way: given at start, pops, trade, steal, extort. This messes up with the above formula and research priorities.
Technology cost changes non trivial with advancement as well as with relative number of technologies other factions discovered. Faction that fell behind in research get them to research a little cheaper.
I don't even mention the actual speed of research. I.e. mapping research sequence to actual game turns. That is pretty impossible to model but this is what we ultimately need.
Again, I would love to try modeling the way they are researched in the game. This will be fun to see how it changes. However, with all above factors it will still be quite not exact. As I said, I didn't want it to be exact. I just factored in a little bit more logic hoping it would be a little bit more close to reality. The process can continue indefinitely.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 09, 2018, 12:31:59 PM
So shifting initial balance of psi combat to 1:1 actually improves Gaian's winning chances by 50% comparing to factions without this benefit. That was my whole point.
:)
That doesn't make sense. 2:1 favors offense with psi, not Gaians. Gaians will be on offense or defense in any given situation. If they are trying to trash other factions, you've taken away their teeth.
First, as I just explained, their teeth are mostly intact. Everyone has now 50% change winning in psi combat without any modificators. With +1 PLANET (+10% strength) it changes to 75%. With +2 PLANET (+20% strength) it reaches 90% winning chances. About the same bonuses gives the Morale for troops against natives. So you see they already have pretty hefty attack bonus and they can improve it even more if they need so.
With 3:2 default odds and with +1 PLANET they are going to kill everybody 100% of the time ignoring perimeter. I don't like teeth working 100% of the time. That renders all other factors of the game unusable. As you yourself nicely put before: everything should cost something. Gaian's already have a bonus taking them half way to victory. Let them sacrifice something else to get to this victory completely. Otherwise, when this cost nothing, it becomes a must use strategy or you just lose your advantage. This is what I am arguing against in this topic and, I believe, you do too.
Yes. Every time somebody modify something in game it changes somehow. Strategy and tactics preference changes slightly. It becomes somewhat different game. That what modders do. Why should we blindly afraid that modified game would feel somewhat different than vanilla? If you want to preserve all it had play vanilla then.
:)
Post by: bvanevery on November 09, 2018, 02:56:03 PM
Interesting. Sure I can try that - piece of cake. Just didn't follow your explanation exactly to the letter. Is it published somewhere on the Net?
Nope. I haven't looked at the game's disassembly and that's what you'd actually have to do to be 100% certain this is how things are done. But, I've been doing linear algebra
Post by: bvanevery on November 09, 2018, 03:20:10 PM
First, as I just explained, their teeth are mostly intact. Everyone has now 50% change winning in psi combat without any modificators.
When I am the attacker with a mindworm, I have way better odds than that!
Quote
With +1 PLANET (+10% strength) it changes to 75%. With +2 PLANET (+20% strength) it reaches 90% winning chances. About the same bonuses gives the Morale for troops against natives. So you see they already have pretty hefty attack bonus and they can improve it even more if they need so.
No, I don't see. You are requiring me to be a +2 PLANET faction to be able to make effective use of mindworms. In my mod that means being stuck with Green and Knowledge. Both have their penalties, and Knowledge isn't even something you can have right away. What does the enemy have to do to keep up? Get Doctrine: Mobility, a Conquer 1 tech, and build a Command Center. Access to improvement is way skewed here. There's no way to get around the fact that you're nerfing the offensive power of mindworms. What did mindworms ever do to you??! Didn't they cuddle you, tickle your tummy enough as a tiny baby?
;lynchmob ;hippy :doh ;brainhurts
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With 3:2 default odds and with +1 PLANET they are going to kill everybody 100% of the time ignoring perimeter. I don't like teeth working 100% of the time.
You're supposed to counterattack them. They get pretty beat up making their attacks, they have no stamina against a counterattack. If you don't want to be attacked in the 1st place, you build Trance units. Trance ability is free in the stock game. I ended that, tired of giveaways that just complicate the unit designs.
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That renders all other factors of the game unusable.
No, because there are all kinds of other military potentials, PLANET strength does still matter in the stock game, and mindworms have slow movement. They are not the One True Weapons Platform. They are not in need of special persecution.
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As you yourself nicely put before: everything should cost something. Gaian's already have a bonus taking them half way to victory.
You're going on about the Gaians like they're some kind of stock Believers with an inherent +2 SUPPORT faction bonus. They are not a steamroller faction! Nobody historically thinks so, that I'm aware of. I toughened up my Gaians, they're still not what I'd call awesome at military operations. You are conflating "what you'd like to see happen about Planet Pearls" with what kind of military might any faction evidences in practice. Fighting in this game is not an on paper spreadsheet, there are too many tactical considerations for it to be that simple. I'm willing to try your changes, with a test game including 3 PLANET factions. I predict this is not going to be a happy experience for a PLANET oriented player.
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Why should we blindly afraid that modified game would feel somewhat different than vanilla?
The issue here is whether you're solving problems of offensive vs. defensive balance, vs. failing to understand existing combat and asymmetrical tactics in the game. In eliminating what's different about mindworm combat, you might be making this into a more dull game, with fewer tactical choices. But I will suspend judgment until I see what mindworm combat actually behaves like under your new regime.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 09, 2018, 03:35:28 PM
Post by: bvanevery on November 09, 2018, 04:56:14 PM
;hippy :hunter: ;nuke;
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 09, 2018, 05:14:26 PM
Ok, is your alphax.txt "current" now? Made any more changes? I'm actually in the middle of my own half-decent game with Morgan sitting on the Monsoon Jungle, and I'd prefer to keep playing that for a bit. But I can put your alphax.txt in the queue for a next game, on top of stock SMAC. I'm curious whether your weapons progressions work or you've screwed the pooch somehow. I will test by playing as the Gaians, against the Cult of Planet, Caretakers, Usurpers, and 3 other random factions. In the stock game, the Gaians are the one's I'd most expect to be harmed by mindworm shenanigans.
;hippy :hunter: ;nuke;
Yes. It is current. I played it yesterday. Keep in mind though I didn't put efforts in aligning and rebalancing the rest of the options those may need rebalancing due to my changes. Things like factions, SE, basic rules - I didn't touch at all. It is not fully rounded and well polished mod. Just one element of it that can be used in other mods. With that in mind I can as well take yours as a base and apply my changes on top of it if you like to keep your mod experience with SE and factions. Piece of cake for me.
I appreciate your interest. Feel free to tweak anything there and let me know if I should adopt it.
:)
Post by: bvanevery on November 09, 2018, 08:17:25 PM
I will review.
Post by: bvanevery on November 09, 2018, 08:22:19 PM
Look at my estimate. It has index of 32 out of 85 which is about 40% down the line. It's more like middle, not early one.
You are neglecting that Alien factions make a beeline for it, to get the R-Laser. It's their tech after all. And that they have a head start getting there due to Field Modulation. It also seems to be popular enough among human factions. This is probably due to the Aliens readily trading their 3-Res armor away, or it being stolen from them. In the stock SMAC I'd say Bioadaptive Resonance is an "early midgame" tech.
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I forgot about Ogre equipped with this weapon, though. Well this is a first draft there be a lot of misses. We can think how to deal with it later or just swap it for some earlier technology and lower the strength.
If you want to have a very powerful R-Laser, then you just put a lesser armament on the Ogre. I did give Empath Song to the Ogre so that they would still have some offensive capability against mindworms. Truth is mindworms tear them up though. Doesn't matter what you give them. Trance, High Morale, 3-Res armor, doesn't matter.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 09, 2018, 08:23:43 PM
Well that's the rub. If you don't think your alphax.txt is "standalone" yet, then it makes more sense for me to merely tweak the 1 setting about psi combat and go test it. I'll review other things, but there's no way I'd ever rip up all my weapons and armor, so not even worth testing that in my mod. Only principles that would apply to my mod, are worth testing there.
I will review.
It is standalone as I understand it. I said I didn't polish and rebalance its other elements. That's it. So it is vanilla txt with my changes. This is completely playable. However, I didn't play it a lot yet and didn't gather statistics from other people and their suggestions.
About your mod you misunderstood me as usual. I do not suggest you add my changes to your mod and distribute it as next AIG version. I will borrow your tree (and maybe SE and factions too) and add mine on top of that and distribute it as my mod. Which you are welcome to try.
Post by: bvanevery on November 09, 2018, 08:24:45 PM
Good idea. I didn't touch much these special items yet. Can I just rename them in file?
Yes. You'll need to rename references to them too.
Post by: bvanevery on November 09, 2018, 08:33:28 PM
I will put Believers and Spartans in the game to test the attack bonus vs. inherent Spartan military skill. Spartans also because they get free prototypes unlike other factions. I will play as Gaians and include Caretakers, Usurpers, and Cult of Planet to test effects on PLANET factions. In the stock game it is also worth noting that both the Believers and the Usurpers get -1 PLANET. 1 faction left to pick, who to round out with?
Probably should just accept that my Morgan game is derailed anyways. Too much YouTube research the past 48 hours.
Prototype cost increased.
100, ; Extra percentage cost of prototype LAND unit
100, ; Extra percentage cost of prototype SEA unit
100, ; Extra percentage cost of prototype AIR unit
Psi combat equalized.
1,1, ; Psi combat offense-to-defense ratio (LAND unit defending)
This one just taken from some other mod. Don't remember which.
50, ; Combat % -> Fanatic attack bonus
Removed penalty for non combat units.
0, ; Combat penalty % -> Non-combat unit defending vs. combat unit
Sensor improved.
50, ; Combat % -> Defend in range of friendly Sensor
Taken from some other mod. Feels like it makes sense.
15, ; Combat % -> Psi attack bonus/penalty per +PLANET
Disabled rest of reactors.
#REACTORS
Fission Plant, Fission, 1, None,
Fusion Reactor, Fusion, 2, Disable, ;Fusion,
Quantum Chamber, Quantum, 3, Disable, ;Quantum,
Singularity Engine, Singularity, 4, Disable, ;SingMec,
BTW it looks like you did not actually attach your alphax.txt to that post. And it looks like you forgot about "ship in port" in the list above. I know what! Last faction will be the Pirates, to test ship in port change.
Think I'll test a Standard map. Someone will probably be runted by the lack of space, but skewing effects on early game violence needs to be tested. Standard ensures that immediate collision between various factions is likely.
Getting rid of Fusion, Quantum, and Singularity, has the small skewing effect of 2 tech tree entries that have all kinds of weights set in their favor, but are not actually worth anything. I won't change any of that, because they are still prereqs to other techs. Fusion Power occurs late midgame in my mod anyways, and for all I know a Standard game could even be over by then. One unanticipated skewing effect of losing Fusion reactors, is the AI may not make any Super Formers or Super Fungicidal Formers, due to perceived unit cost. We'll see.
Post by: bvanevery on November 09, 2018, 10:34:47 PM
I've started on fertile land at the base of Mt. Planet. The Caretakers are to the northeast, and sufficiently distant to not cause me an immediate problem. The Believers are to the east at a similar distance, sitting on the Monsoon Jungle. As of 2138 both of these neighbors are Seething, so we will be going to war sometime. I actually dominate the power graph though, I'm slightly ahead of Miriam, so it won't happen just yet.
The Cultists are my ally and are sitting on 1/3rd of the Monsoon Jungle. Maybe they will war. On the other hand, in my mod they are both Fundamentalist factions, so maybe they won't? I won't be shocked if I'm called upon to wipe out the Believers. That would be a good mindworm combat test, so if asked, I will do it.
The Pirates are in the ocean to the southwest and are currently Magnanimous. I have a Treaty with the Usurpers and they are Noncommittal. I am unsure of their location, but it doesn't look like it's near me. Not a word from the Spartans, and they are weak on the graph.
My current ambition is to Explore and make new cities, as I still have good land to fill out. And room to do it, without immediately getting into fisticuffs. I have kept the Gaian's traditional Explore-only focus. In my mod, a fair number of Conquer techs have an Explore component as well, so it seems viable.
Post by: bvanevery on November 09, 2018, 10:56:34 PM
double jeopardy |
MY 2141. First evidence that Tim's PSI settings don't work as he intended. My Scout popped a pod on Rocky terrain and was surrounded by 3 hatchling mindworms. I had a Scout Rover nearby so I attacked 1 of them. That left 2, and also promoted them to Larval Mass. They then attacked my Scout and it lived. Unheard of. Never happens that way, even with a factional PSI bonus. The new settings may not make it harder to flush fungus at all. They may merely change the way you game it, as now "don't attack" is the best move.
It would be good to see how a non-PLANET faction does in similar circumstances. But I will keep going with this game for now.
die grasping upon me |
MY 2145. Defense against mindworms is clearly too easy now. Granted this unit is Hardened, but this isn't even a Trance unit. If I want to take out the Believers, I predict that all I'll have to do is make a bunch of mindworms and it'll be a cakewalk. The special vulnerability of mindworms to pre-emptive attack is gone.
Post by: bvanevery on November 09, 2018, 11:15:21 PM
threesome |
MY 2136. This sequence proves that the AI is not hardwired about mindworm capabilities. It is clearly afraid of the defensive capability of my unit. After popping, I got back out of the way. 1 of those 3 mindworms could have attacked me, and it simply doesn't. Next turn I drive right on by, out of harm's way. Another unintended consequences of the odds change: easier for a Rover to escape.
three WIMPS |
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 09, 2018, 11:20:23 PM
The new settings may not make it harder to flush fungus at all. They may merely change the way you game it, as now "don't attack" is the best move.
First of all, thank you for investing your time in that. I really appreciate this.
Regarding the worm strategy. Technically "don't attack" is not a best move now it is just not a worst one anymore.
Post by: bvanevery on November 09, 2018, 11:31:16 PM
First of all, thank you for investing your time in that. I really appreciate this.
:danc:
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Regarding the worm strategy. Technically "don't attack" is not a best move now it is just not a worst one anymore.
It's a freakin' !#$#in' fantastic move now. The formerly vicious mindworms are turning into cute little zoo pets squirming about. I am making so much money from popping pods. I didn't expect this to be such a gift to the Gaians.
evade |
MY 2150. I almost wonder if the mindworm distribution algorithm has been affected by this too. It may only be coincidence of land shape, but this is the 2nd time I've gotten a "surround" shape that's pretty easy to wiggle my way out of. Maybe the presence of a 2nd accompanying unit is the difference, and I just haven't been generally in the habit of having one around? It's an accident of found units, nothing I intended.
hold your fire |
Cornered, I attacked with my Hardened Rover, which worked fine. Then I attacked with my Disciplined 4-1-1, which didn't. Hardened Rover finished the last one off. The expectations for combat are changed. I was probably better off just waiting for the mindworm to attack me. A Scout can probably advance on a mindworm without fear, to herd it.
jock strap of invincibility |
Well this is just complete ridiculous fail. That Hardened Scout was standing in deep fungus. I think we need to bring Geo's Planet Buster PSI mod into this, to even things out.
;hippy ;liftoff ;nuke; ;nuke; ;nuke; ;nuke; ;nuke; ;nuke; ;nuke; ;nuke; :1st:
This is so stupid, I am changing the setting back to 3:2 odds now. No more discussion or delays. We'll see if the other settings hold up / change things much.
Post by: bvanevery on November 10, 2018, 12:49:18 AM
capturing strength |
MY 2167. Ok I am Green now. In my mod that's another +1 PLANET, giving me a total of +2. For a long time I only had 1 mindworm and 1 spore launcher. I fought plenty of mindworms under the 1:1 odds rule, but I never captured anything. I suspect that it might take some attack power to capture a mindworm. Recently I did get a bunch of mindworms, but it was from supply pod clonings, not capturing. This is the 1st mindworm I've captured since my first "gimme" mindworms. The game always lets you capture your 1st mindworm, spore launcher, and Isle of the Deep.
The problem could have been the 1:1 odds. Or it could be this is a Standard map and I've more frequently played Huge maps in the past. I've definitely amassed massive mindworm armies with only +1 PLANET on a Huge map. It could get so ridiculous, that for awhile I seriously questioned the value of anything beyond +1 PLANET. Only recently did I start paying attention to the PSI combat value of a high PLANET rating.
Post by: bvanevery on November 10, 2018, 01:05:43 AM
easy hunting |
MY 2169. After trashing more mindworms in the fungus with my own mindworms, I suspect that the new PSI settings have made it unnecessarily easy for +PLANET factions. The intent might be to penalize -PLANET factions, but this goes both ways, it creates a bonus too. I'm changing it back to the 10% increment.
YMMV for changes in stock SMAC. I have given Deirdre a 20% PSI bonus, all native life production costs are cheaper in my mod, and Trance is not a free ability. Fiddling with these PSI settings might be trying to rebalance something I've already rebalanced in some ways.
I will try an odds ratio less severe than 1:1. How about 4:3 instead of 3:2 ? That makes it a 33% attack advantage instead of a 50% advantage. 5:4 would be a 25% advantage, and 6:5 would be a 20% advantage. I'll start with 33% and see how it goes.
MY 2207. Us 3 Fundamentalist powers are all at war with each other. And I'm fighting the Caretakers. As there is scratch land and fungus between us, I've mainly spent my time romping my captured mindworms back and forth destroying interlopers. That's been rather easy, making me think it's time to change the odds setting. Now I realize, I didn't in fact change the odds setting, it's been at 3:2. So unfortunately I have no result on 4:3 yet. I can say, the default of 3:2 with Gaians with a 20% PSI bonus and +2 PLANET yielding a grand total of +40% is really easy to wipe out incoming units with. I do get pretty beat up but I've got a Demon Boil and some Mature Boils doing the work.
I don't have a lot of incentive to invade en masse because I still have some good territory to expand into, and not as much production cranking out stuff as one might wish. For all the declared violence, this is a slow game. Despite neighbors, I seem to have started in a position of basic geographic safety. The Pirates are my ally and nothing comes at me from the sea. I'm thinking of going Democratic as I can stand to get rid of my growth penalty, and I needn't worry about anyone's political happiness anymore. Obviously, my sycophantic politics did not make them happy!
Post by: bvanevery on November 10, 2018, 04:29:53 AM
tough tractors |
MY 2213. A Demon Boil takes on a Former and receives 50% wounds in the process. I think that's kind of ridiculous. If I had used an Elite military unit with any weapon larger than hand guns, I don't think we'd have a problem visualizing the Elite unit as completely destroying the glorified tractor, without the Elite unit taking more than a scratch. The Demon Boil is the mindworm equivalent of an Elite unit. It's supposed to be tough. I will monitor future combats like this, to see whether this is a mindworm specific problem, but something has to change here. I'm using 4:3 PSI odds.
I changed to Police State because the Fundamentalists cannot be pleased. This frees up my research, but ironically, the slight loss of EFFICIENCY made 4 of my cities unhappy. I only have 13 cities and my EFFICIENCY is now +2. Seems a bit goofy that they were reporting me as at my limit with +3 EFFICIENCY. I guess I haven't done a Standard map in a long time. Who knows, maybe I'll graduate to Democratic, but for now I want the +1 SUPPORT. In my mod, Green has -1 SUPPORT, so I want these evened out.
Post by: bvanevery on November 10, 2018, 04:46:18 AM
lucky for them |
MY 2214. A Veteran 3-Res unit on Rolling terrain, barely survives a hit from my Boil attacking from fungus. That's equivalent to a Hardened unit, just below a Veteran. I am not sure if attacking from fungus is supposed to give me a bonus or not. A normal unit defending on fungus definitely gets a penalty. I am ambivalent about the Veteran 3-Res surviving this. He was a bit higher ranked and he did have an anti-PSI defense, but he wasn't on favorable (Rocky) terrain. Also, I'm the Gaians, and in total I'm supposed to have a 40% advantage at this. I will watch how other battles go.
Post by: bvanevery on November 10, 2018, 05:52:53 AM
cheap substitution |
MY 2229. My Heavy Submarine survives the direct attack of an Isle of the Deep that came out of nowhere. The sub has no particular PSI defenses nor any particular maritime skill. It's not influenced by the 4:3 odds as this is a sea battle with its own 1:1 odds setting. Was this considered a Noncombat unit, is that the problem here? If an Isle can't kill an unarmed and unarmored Transport, that's a dealbreaker flaw in the game. Possibly my PSI advantages are at work here.
Post by: bvanevery on November 10, 2018, 06:56:27 AM
all the good attacking does |
MY 2241. I've still been playing the same old slow game, and I think it's not worth manually testing it any more. I'm not learning anything new. The extra attack bonus did not help the Believers against the Cult of Planet. The Believers lost a number of Monsoon Jungle cities to the Cult, but the rest of their empire didn't get overrun and they took a city back somewhere. I don't know if the Cult did well because of PSI modifications in their favor, so I think they should rematch in a new game.
The Spartans and Usurpers were runted and basically didn't count as opponents this game.
I would not play as the Gaians again. I need to see a faction that doesn't have a PSI bonus and not as good of a PLANET rating. Although the problem is, if you don't have a good PLANET rating, why would you bother with mindworms at all? Maybe out of ignorance about the effect that PLANET has on PSI combat. In which case, one might erroneously conclude "gee, mindworms suck" or "mindworms work this or that way". Maybe I should play the Caretakers, as they only have +1 PLANET and no PSI bonus.
So far I've firmly concluded that 1:1 land PSI odds is a joke. Don't go there. My jury is out on 4:3, I can't tell yet. 15% PSI increment instead of 10% looks like a bad idea too. Too helpful to +PLANET factions.
Removing the Noncombat penalty entirely, is probably not acceptable, but I haven't seen many cases of that. I didn't do that much fighting this game.
I honestly didn't even notice the prototyping delay.
There were no naval battles so ship caught in port is unknown.
Didn't really invade enemy territory to know about Sensors.
Post by: bvanevery on November 10, 2018, 08:38:17 AM
slaughtering colonists |
MY 2148. Gaians didn't like my Planned economy, and got huffy when I told to leave my territory. Now I get to slaughter one of their colonists in my territory. Or do I? Usually I kill it but barely live. Sometimes I die. When I first went to write this up, I died and they had 50% strength remaining. I thought that was sick and wrong, but it was an outlier. I'm looking at them with 30% strength remaining right now. Still, that's not really acceptable. I have hand guns, they don't. What are they supposed to do, use chi powers to deflect my bullets? Run around in exacerbating patterns so all my guys shoot themselves? This is lame, they should be dying and not taking the mickey out of me.
Noncombat -25% |
Using a lesser Noncombat penalty, I usually win, but it's still possible for my Scout to die. I think it is necessary to have a Noncombat penalty to deal with the fact that the unit has a 0 attack. And -25% doesn't seem to be enough. My opinion is the Scout should always win this fight, although taking various numbers of wounds is acceptable.
die like you should |
Restoring it to -50%, I always win. Damage is random, and this is about the worst I get beat up. I don't recall going into the red. Works for me, don't think the game needs tweaking on this one.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 10, 2018, 11:29:29 AM
QuoteRegarding the worm strategy. Technically "don't attack" is not a best move now it is just not a worst one anymore.
It's a freakin' !#$#in' fantastic move now. The formerly vicious mindworms are turning into cute little zoo pets squirming about. I am making so much money from popping pods. I didn't expect this to be such a gift to the Gaians.
Should it be different for other factions? PLANET works on the offence only so any other faction has same worm survivability.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 10, 2018, 11:31:36 AM
The problem could have been the 1:1 odds. Or it could be this is a Standard map and I've more frequently played Huge maps in the past. I've definitely amassed massive mindworm armies with only +1 PLANET on a Huge map. It could get so ridiculous, that for awhile I seriously questioned the value of anything beyond +1 PLANET. Only recently did I start paying attention to the PSI combat value of a high PLANET rating.Changes of capturing native on attack is 25% * PLANET. Does not depend on odds.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 10, 2018, 11:55:54 AM
I will try an odds ratio less severe than 1:1. How about 4:3 instead of 3:2 ? That makes it a 33% attack advantage instead of a 50% advantage. 5:4 would be a 25% advantage, and 6:5 would be a 20% advantage. I'll start with 33% and see how it goes.
Yep. I think some of these may work too. My idea was to move them closer to the 50% chance to avoid near 100% determined combat outcome. As long as they are significantly below 100% there is a room for shifting probabilities in both directions.
1:1 = 50% winning chance, 3:2 = 100%. 6:5 = ~80%. Others are in between.
Another driver was the idea of equalizing natives in all realms. Why should sea native battle be any different? I agree air is special case, though. Not that simple.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 10, 2018, 12:39:13 PM
I tested this on top of the Thinker mod. So it may have something to do with it or with combination of Thinker + disabled reactors. Don't know. I've post the same question in the Thinker thread.
Anyway. It looks like using reactors is unavoidable. There are too many variables tied to them.
One of the problems with reactors in vanilla is that they got discovered quite late. Fusion around the middle of the tech tree and two others are at the very end of the game. That essentially makes Fusion reactor the only one somehow affecting the game. Also, as explained in many other places, Fusion reactors have the biggest proportional power growth making it the biggest breaker.
I am thinking to distribute them more evenly in technology sequence so Fusion come earlier when are not yet in total war so everyone can get it. Then other reactors will come into place closer to the middle of the game making lesser impact on military power balance.
I am also thinking to make unit cost progressing somewhat more exponential so that in combination with reactor price cut they would make sense close to the end of the game. The cost progression will still be a zigzag graph but, at least, cost of all units won't go down to 6 with Singularity reactor. Stronger units will still cost more.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 10, 2018, 02:36:15 PM
bvanevery has already done something like that in his AIG mod. I will see if I can reuse his tree with his permission. Otherwise, I'll just keep relinking original technologies until desired effect is achieved.
Post by: bvanevery on November 10, 2018, 03:06:33 PM
It's a freakin' !#$#in' fantastic move now. The formerly vicious mindworms are turning into cute little zoo pets squirming about. I am making so much money from popping pods. I didn't expect this to be such a gift to the Gaians.
Should it be different for other factions? PLANET works on the offence only so any other faction has same worm survivability.
Well, alphax.txt says it's for offense, but I think I'll watch the odds screens just in case it's really offense and defense and they wrote it up wrong.
Code: [Select]
10, ; Combat % -> Psi attack bonus/penalty per +PLANETThe Gaians in my mod also have a (PSI, 20) bonus which seems to be for offense and defense.
Code: [Select]
; PSI = Percentage combat bonus for PSI Combat.I predict that 1:1 land odds makes mindworms very timid regardless of faction though. They probably just don't think they can win, and they don't seem to have "smash forwards no matter what" programming.
Although, an alternate hypothesis would be that +PLANET makes mindworm AI behavior less hostile somehow. I've never consistently observed that though. Early game it's pretty typical to see a larva dancing around your back acre, without a strong goal to come attack you, and it's not faction dependent. Maybe there's a "wandering nuisance" mode?
I've also wondered why Isles will just hang out in the ocean and not attack something, seemingly if they are far enough away from settlements.
Post by: bvanevery on November 10, 2018, 03:15:06 PM
Why should sea native battle be any different?
I don't have much feel for the default odds of naval combat. Haven't done enough of that over the years. My worry is that everything might actually work a little bit weird under the hood, and not according to some "clean" designation of odds. In the days of grognard wargaming, this might have been called a "transparency" issue. The grognards wanted to know what "the odds table" was. For a game like The Operational Art of War, there was actually a lot of C code deciding outcomes, there was no odds table. This led to some bitter fights over things like whether 1000 trucks should be able to fend off some tanks... I wonder if that flap is still on the internet somewhere? It taught me to watch out for irritated, picky, thankless, cheap players who aren't numerous enough to pay the bills.
Quote
I agree air is special case, though. Not that simple.
My experience trying to do air interception of Locusts of Chiron is they're pretty much unkillable. I'm not sure if I was fully paying attention to PLANET as a factor.
Post by: bvanevery on November 10, 2018, 03:23:02 PM
I have recently tested disabling the rest of reactors besides Fission to avoid weapon/armor effectiveness progression break. Unfortunately, I've encountered unforeseen consequences. AI factions' custom design units got equipped with Singularity reactor. So far I've seen only custom formers and custom probe units having it but, I guess, this is enough of a game breaker already.
WTF? That's decidedly odd. Try completely deleting the lines for Fusion, Quantum, and Singularity.
Quote
I am thinking to distribute them more evenly in technology sequence so Fusion come earlier when are not yet in total war so everyone can get it.
I theorized that a 3, 4, 5, 6 sequence of reactor strengths would be a better strength progression, but it would have a helluva effect on air and sea movement, and on missile blast radii. Although... if Planet Busters are egregiously expensive, and even one is a serious doomsday weapon, that might be ok! I'd be ok with fungal blasts being more dramatic too. Such large tectonic blasts could be problem though.
Progression of squares covered by blast radii, starting from 1.
9, 25, 49, 81, 121, 169
Um... I'm not sure there can even be a cost model handling that kind of range. I never really thought about the destruction potential of Quantum or Singularity Planet Busters before. Why would I? The game is close enough to over by then.
Post by: bvanevery on November 10, 2018, 03:25:07 PM
I will see if I can reuse his tree with his permission.
The licensing is explicit in readme_mod.txt. You just have to abide by the terms.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 10, 2018, 04:59:19 PM
Well, alphax.txt says it's for offense, but I think I'll watch the odds screens just in case it's really offense and defense and they wrote it up wrong.Code: [Select]10, ; Combat % -> Psi attack bonus/penalty per +PLANET
That is for offence only in vanilla. See Yutzi's patch description. He added a switch so one can use this on defense as well.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 10, 2018, 05:03:09 PM
I have recently tested disabling the rest of reactors besides Fission to avoid weapon/armor effectiveness progression break. Unfortunately, I've encountered unforeseen consequences. AI factions' custom design units got equipped with Singularity reactor. So far I've seen only custom formers and custom probe units having it but, I guess, this is enough of a game breaker already.
WTF? That's decidedly odd. Try completely deleting the lines for Fusion, Quantum, and Singularity.
Good news. This turned to be Induktio fault. At least he admitted it and claimed he fixed it in latest release. Just saw his post and didn't test it myself, though.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 10, 2018, 05:04:56 PM
I theorized that a 3, 4, 5, 6 sequence of reactor strengths would be a better strength progression, but it would have a helluva effect on air and sea movement, and on missile blast radii. Although... if Planet Busters are egregiously expensive, and even one is a serious doomsday weapon, that might be ok! I'd be ok with fungal blasts being more dramatic too. Such large tectonic blasts could be problem though.
Not happening, unfortunately. You can disable reactor in txt but cannot change its HP multiplier. It's hardwired somewhere in code. You and I both tried it.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 10, 2018, 05:06:22 PM
I will see if I can reuse his tree with his permission.
The licensing is explicit in readme_mod.txt. You just have to abide by the terms.
I may read it but may not understand how it applies to borrowing pieces of txt. Can you just summarize it for me if you allow me to do this and what should I do in return if any?
Post by: bvanevery on November 10, 2018, 06:53:19 PM
Good news. This turned to be Induktio fault. At least he admitted it and claimed he fixed it in latest release. Just saw his post and didn't test it myself, though.
With the huge scope of work he's been doing, I've wondered how testing and verification would shake out over time. Good that that was caught. A system of proactively designing things to be caught, is needed. Like, heavy duty projects run some kind of automated unit test. But it's his project and it remains to be seen how much of the Software Engineering hat he wants to put on, to deal with the inevitable problems.
Messing with disassembled ASM code is a horrible medium to try to build a stable maintainable long term endeavor upon. Even if one pursues C code injections as I think he's mostly doing, there's still the problem of anyone understanding what the heck is going on in the original ASM code in the 1st place. The vast majority of people are not going to sit down and pore over all of that from scratch, trying to figure it out Yet Again.
A method for definitively and conscientiously communicating these discoveries about how the ASM code actually works, is needed. But that's a serious Project Disciplinarian kind of thing to pull off, and a lot of work even for people who are highly motivated. I look at the kind of organizational labor involved with that sort of thing, contemplate my previous career as a 3D graphics device driver writer, and think I should just write a new game.
Without serious "shared knowledge and testing" infrastructure like that, Induktio gets hit by a bus, or Induktio gets a life / job / girlfriend / wife / child, and that's it. Game over. Never see him again, just like Yitzi. Can't tell you how many times I've seen people "tap out" in Open Source development, and I've tapped out (or been forced out) of a few projects myself. There's a time window of a few years' conscientiousness where the right kind of infrastructure can be put in place, for others to keep building on it. If it isn't done within that time window, it never gets done, and the project will die in the face of history.
In short, ongoing maintenance is a !@#@!
That's why I keep telling people how many PERSON MONTHS I've exactly worked on my mod. I KNOW the consequences of things getting too big and involved. Been there, done that, a good number of times by now. I'm happy that so far I haven't exceeded previous game modding efforts. This Battle for Wesnoth thing that sucked me dry back in the day.
If 1.25 ends up being the last release I ever make, for whatever reason (summary death, complete boredom), I think I did actually cross the finish line. The real challenge to me now, is getting more people to play what I already made.
Post by: bvanevery on November 10, 2018, 06:57:28 PM
I may read it but may not understand how it applies to borrowing pieces of txt. Can you just summarize it for me if you allow me to do this and what should I do in return if any?
It's one of the Creative Commons licenses. If you use substantive amounts of my work, you have to credit me. And you can't make a dime off of it. That's it. Pretty simple terms.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 10, 2018, 07:21:13 PM
With the huge scope of work he's been doing, I've wondered how testing and verification would shake out over time.
Some crazy people doing crazy things. That is how it is tested.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 10, 2018, 07:23:03 PM
I may read it but may not understand how it applies to borrowing pieces of txt. Can you just summarize it for me if you allow me to do this and what should I do in return if any?
It's one of the Creative Commons licenses. If you use substantive amounts of my work, you have to credit me. And you can't make a dime off of it. That's it. Pretty simple terms.
Well, is your tree a substantive amount?
Post by: bvanevery on November 10, 2018, 09:21:34 PM
Not happening, unfortunately. You can disable reactor in txt but cannot change its HP multiplier. It's hardwired somewhere in code. You and I both tried it.
It's hard for me to remember stuff like that sometimes. Why offer parameters that are not in fact parameterizeable? I wonder if they can be changed if you change the name of stuff as well. Just trying to scratch my hacker brain about how someone may have goofed this. I'll go poke at it again.
Post by: bvanevery on November 10, 2018, 09:57:45 PM
Well, is your tree a substantive amount?
Of course it is! Haven't you read my CHANGELOG in readme_mod.txt? There's 6 months of ongoing gore in there about just how much work it is to produce a completely new tech tree like that. There's no problem with you starting from my tree, or making vast changes to it, but you do have to credit me. That's what a CC Attribution license means.
How to credit me? I don't know; something perfunctory, and not buried deeply in the weeds? Presumably in your own README file about your work. Or you could just play the "additive Copyright statements" game, like I did with Firaxis.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 11, 2018, 12:46:01 AM
How to credit me? I don't know; something perfunctory, and not buried deeply in the weeds? Presumably in your own README file about your work. Or you could just play the "additive Copyright statements" game, like I did with Firaxis.
Oh well. I'll do my own. Too much legal stuff. Thanks for offer.
Post by: bvanevery on November 11, 2018, 02:06:04 AM
Yeah sure, by all means do whatever you want yourself. If you think it's only a weekend's worth of work to make up the tech tree that you want, definitely nothing stopping you. You might find it's a bit more than that when you get down into the weeds, or you might not. It depends on the scope of what you try to do.
Actual software I've released in the past, has always been under MIT license. That basically says, "keep my copyright notice, but you can do whatever you want, there's no warranty, don't go complaining to me about any warranty." But this mod isn't code, that I expect someone to stick in a library somewhere. It's authorship. Authors need attribution to justify their work. Maybe that's what you object to... I didn't say you can't claim credit for writing what you write, only that you have to credit me for what I wrote.
Regarding attribution, there are other software license variants out there. Under the Zlib license, for instance, you can do what you want with the code, but you can't claim you wrote it at all. You can't claim your work is the original material, you have to strongly differentiate your own changes with comments, etc. That's acceptable in some business cases, and not in others. But it's still better than the typical GNU Public License deal which makes you give away your source code along with whatever you're writing.
Then there's the BSD license where you're not allowed to name the author of the code, or try to seek their endorsement or mention in any way. I think this is to avoid perceived liability, or guilt by association. People want all kinds of things. "Credit me! Credit me! Credit me!" "Meh." "Don't you even think about crediting me." Funny world huh.
If you work with other people's stuff, you'll need to figure out all these licenses sooner or later. I chose Creative Commons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons_license) for this because they are clear, well known licenses, readily spelling out what they're all for. They are typically used for things like art assets in games, audio, music, written works, etc. Artist-oriented. They're not software oriented.
Post by: bvanevery on November 11, 2018, 05:19:04 AM
super scouts |
I did not enjoy getting pwnd by the Believers. I already had stress from immediate Caretaker war, then the Gaians piled on. Then the Believers got access to my shore by way of an earthquake, then eventually declared war on me. They taught me something about breaking early game stalemates, that if you have enough Scouts, it can work. I could have had some artillery to deal with them, but I didn't, because it wasn't clear to me what choices I should be making in the high stress situation. I still don't know how to play my own mod, and then there's Tim's variables even on top of that.
I quit in disgust, then remembered that I was supposed to be assessing test cases, and that this was one of them. I cranked it up again and re-lived the 4 Scout base stomping. It only took 2 scouts to destroy my Synthmetal defender, and that defender is trained. I don't think that's acceptable. This +50% fanatic thing is going in the direction of offense is fantastic, defense doesn't even matter. I never did figure out the MORALE equivalent of that bonus, but now I don't feel the need to. I'm not even slightly prepared to live with this kind of change, it's reverting to stock.
If I wanted the Believers to be tougher, I'd find some other way. I have considered giving them +1 MORALE, but I've found their AI vs. AI performance to be acceptable as of late. They got other bonuses instead, not just a "here's your new combat badass" bonus.
Come to think of it, the MORALE equivalence is right there in the odds screen. +25% attack bonus is equivalent to 2 MORALE levels higher. +50% is equivalent to 4, like a Commando fighting a Green unit. Or their stupid little runt Disciplined unit, that they didn't do anything special to obtain, fights like Elite! Ain't gonna happen. And Lord help us if the Believers get such a bonus while attacking with an Elite unit.
Post by: bvanevery on November 12, 2018, 04:53:31 AM
different kinds of sea level |
I'm thinking both of these settings are lame:
Code: [Select]
50, ; Combat % -> Land based guns vs. ship artillery bonus
25, ; Combat % -> Artillery bonus per level of altitudeLet's try 10% for each.
Post by: bvanevery on November 12, 2018, 06:39:49 AM
no penalty in port |
A combat with the proposed change to the caught in port setting.
marine getting bonus against sea base |
I set it back to the 100% penalty to see what happens. Eventually contrived this attack upon a sea base. I agree that this is completely, utterly stupid. Regardless of any logic it may have ever had about land bases being "ports", it's not acceptable for a ship defending a sea base to be at a disadvantage. So I will change it to 0%.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 12, 2018, 02:08:18 PM
Did you know that altitude matters in Ocean to Ocean ranged combat?
I'm thinking both of these settings are lame:Code: [Select]50, ; Combat % -> Land based guns vs. ship artillery bonus
25, ; Combat % -> Artillery bonus per level of altitude
Let's try 10% for each.
Wow, I didn't too. That's lame. I would completely nullify any altitude related bonuses as it inconvenient at least. Besides now I need to waste my time thinking whether I placed my base too low. Or I would need to raise my base to make it more defense ready. Although it is an interesting concept it's too much additional mouse clicks comparing to the interest.
Post by: bvanevery on November 12, 2018, 05:47:54 PM
Besides now I need to waste my time thinking whether I placed my base too low.
I'm thinking other resource and defense factors would usually outweigh this consideration. Do you have enough minerals, and food to work those minerals? Are you touching fungus? Are you too close to an enemy's route of expansion?
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Or I would need to raise my base to make it more defense ready. Although it is an interesting concept it's too much additional mouse clicks comparing to the interest.
But I think you're right that even worrying about a 10% bonus, is not worth a player's mental energy. Similarly, awhile ago I got rid of variations for unit cost and Trance, so that the player wouldn't futz. I'll zero these. I'll also leave a note about altitude affecting Ocean to Ocean Shelf combat.
Post by: bvanevery on November 12, 2018, 06:40:50 PM
5 to 4 odds |
I am now doing the same Caretaker exercise with 5 to 4 odds. I'm having a problem. This combat, I lost the 1st time, so I'm running it more times to see how it goes. This is only MY 2122 so weak mindworm interlopers should be dying. Having a lone defender not know how to respond to such a mindworm, and losing an early base as a result, would not be fun.
2 mindworm victories in a row |
It was not a fluke. That's enough evidence for me; this setting is no good.
4 to 3 odds |
Changing it back to 4:3, I always win.
bad for me, worse for them |
However it's possible to get really chewed up. It was an outlier, maybe 1 in 6 it went this badly. That would be ok by itself, but this is a +PLANET faction. I'm concerned that a normal strength faction might not do well enough. I'll have to test that now.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 12, 2018, 07:01:36 PM
Besides now I need to waste my time thinking whether I placed my base too low.
I'm thinking other resource and defense factors would usually outweigh this consideration. Do you have enough minerals, and food to work those minerals? Are you touching fungus? Are you too close to an enemy's route of expansion?
Exactly!!!!! That's why I don't want this minor altitude thing to clutter my memory.
Post by: bvanevery on November 12, 2018, 07:57:26 PM
Now a bug like that, in a game like Dwarf Fortress, where people have a culture of being amused by their bizarre deaths, can be fine. But I don't remember anyone in SMAC ever being amused by bizarre combat deaths due to dumb factors. I think this is because SMAC is about managing combat, and also multiplayer combat is expected to be fair. Dwarf Fortress is single player so doesn't have to be fair; in fact it many ways it tends towards egregiously unfair as a matter of design / simulation.
4 to 3 no PLANET bonus |
These are equal opponents, only the 4:3 odds changes anything. I've won consistently, although I can get torn up. That's ok. I think this setting is probably the best that can be done without screwing up the game.
Post by: bvanevery on November 12, 2018, 08:14:39 PM
Especially in my mod, since I make Heavy Artillery available with C1 Doctrine: Mobility and also a (1)-1-1 "Light Artillery" unit. I also took away the extra cost of putting artillery on Speeders or giving them armor, it's just a choice about how you want your gun to work. So the AI likes to produce a lot of (1)-2-1 units, which are annoying early on because you don't have any early weapons that'll easily take out Synthmetal armor in my mod. Fortunately a (1)-1-1 is completely equal to that unit in an artillery duel, the armor doesn't matter. It costs half as much, so the answer is to build (1)-1-1 units for defense and shell any aggressor artillery that comes.
Anyways, much energy is invested in building artillery, and placing Sensor Arrays where artillery can't easily hit them. If you don't do that, whether it's a 25% or 50% bonus doesn't even matter.
Maybe I should find a way to cut down the amount of artillery spam in my mod. Maybe it is annoying.
Post by: bvanevery on November 12, 2018, 10:09:40 PM
hiding behind trees |
Did you know that forests are worth +50% advantage? I think that's too high. However I don't see anywhere to mod it, so I guess I'm stuck with it. The good news is, the AI will pillage that forest.
Post by: bvanevery on November 12, 2018, 10:32:02 PM
convenient Recon defense |
Just saw possibly my 1st instance of defense due to Sensor Array. I didn't have time to get a screen capture of the battle, wasn't prepared. But their Recon Rover attacked mine, as I haven't built any real armor in the base yet. I do have a Perimeter Defense. But, in the ordinary game, I'm pretty sure an attack 2 would kill a defense 1 even behind a wall. Instead here I am sitting pretty with only 50% wounds.
heavier artillery than mine |
I cannot attack his 2 strength artillery with my 1 strength artillery. It is suicide. Can I defend though? Well he doesn't seem to want to attack, so maybe the answer is yes. Oddly, he's not pillaging either. Maybe he realizes the forest is protecting him.
more offensive suicide |
My Perimeter Defense is worth the most here. I'm confused on the math though. Seems like my final strength should be 2.75, not 3.75. Anyways I should probably test the value of Sensor Arrays for a faction that doesn't have Perimeter Defenses. For now I'll just how much junk I can repel though.
This must be a case of geometric vs. arithmetic stacking (http://alphacentauri2.info/wiki/Note_on_Stacking).
1 + (1 * 25%) = 1.25
1.25 + (1.25 * 100%) = 2.5
2.5 + (2.5 * 50%) = 3.75 !!!
The Sensor Array bonus is applied after other stuff has been computed. That means it can have a pretty hefty effect, much more than if you're thinking it's a linear increase from 25% to 50%. If it's at the stock value of 25%:
2.5 + (2.5 * 25%) = 3.125
If I didn't have a Perimeter Defense, and the Sensor Array was at 25%:
1.25 + (1.25 * 25%) = 1.5625
If I didn't have a Perimeter Defense, and the Sensor Array was at 50%:
1.25 + (1.25 * 50%) = 1.875
In short, without the Perimeter Defense, I'd be dead. With the Perimeter Defense, but no Sensor Array, I'd be at 2.5. Even odds with the attacker.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 15, 2018, 01:35:41 PM
This must be a case of geometric vs. arithmetic stacking (http://alphacentauri2.info/wiki/Note_on_Stacking).
1 + (1 * 25%) = 1.25
1.25 + (1.25 * 100%) = 2.5
2.5 + (2.5 * 50%) = 3.75 !!!
The Sensor Array bonus is applied after other stuff has been computed. That means it can have a pretty hefty effect, much more than if you're thinking it's a linear increase from 25% to 50%. If it's at the stock value of 25%:
2.5 + (2.5 * 25%) = 3.125
If I didn't have a Perimeter Defense, and the Sensor Array was at 25%:
1.25 + (1.25 * 25%) = 1.5625
If I didn't have a Perimeter Defense, and the Sensor Array was at 50%:
1.25 + (1.25 * 50%) = 1.875
Unit strength multipliers are multiplicative. So sensor's +50% is a 1.5 multiplier and so on.
Didn't understand what is that. Which factors are you combining?
1 + (1 * 25%) = 1.25
1.25 + (1.25 * 100%) = 2.5
2.5 + (2.5 * 50%) = 3.75 !!!
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 15, 2018, 01:49:05 PM
I've changed my initial idea to re-associating military items with different technologies to smooth out their appearance. Now I think it much better to keep technology association and move corresponding technologies in the tree instead. I believe the stuff technology produces has stronger mnemonic association rather than technology dependency. In fact most of these dependencies are quite inexplicable so replacing some strange dependencies with others won't hurt much.
While handling the task I've realized there are other features besides military items I would love to move up and down technology tree to make them appear at the right time and not too early or too late as in original game. I believe this will add some fun in it.
Since global tech tree and features reshuffling is off the topic I will open another thread on the matter. Please share your opinions there. Thank you to all participating.
Post by: bvanevery on November 15, 2018, 05:09:10 PM
Which factors are you combining?
The ones in my last screenshot of a combat.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 15, 2018, 05:51:27 PM
Which factors are you combining?
The ones in my last screenshot of a combat.
Then your calculation is correct for veteran unit.
Post by: bvanevery on November 25, 2018, 06:26:27 AM
the Fredricksburg effect |
The 50% Sensor Array bonus does seem to create a fortified position, when backed by artillery. I've been blowing away a lot of Believers. Now they're getting so uppity that they're advancing with a stack of 12 peons. But I shell them with 3 artillery pieces, and my defense is too tough for their puny strength 3 guns. That's due to regularizing "weapons = armor" throughout the tech tree.
The Spartans have got Silksteel armor now, but they're on another continent and we're not directly fighting. Just skirmishing in the water to try to steal stuff from them.
Naval assaults on shore are way easier now, since I took the land gun bonus away. When some artillery piece takes pot shots at me, they may come out worse for the wear, depending on what's shooting. Larval spore launchers, especially, are not very good for shelling ships. The Sensor Arrays can be used to create a land advantage again.
Post by: bvanevery on November 26, 2018, 02:12:58 AM
Plus in my mod, a Green economy has -1 SUPPORT and -1 GROWTH. The Gaians aren't going to crank out lots of mindworms with those penalties. In fact it's questionable whether the +1 PLANET is worth it, offensively speaking.
Finally, changing the odds does not affect a PLANET faction's ability to capture wild mindworms at all. It only changes whether it's better to attack or defend. Anyone who wants to harvest a bunch of Planet Pearls, can do so. There's simply no answer here.
Now as it happens in my last test game, on a Standard map, I only managed to capture one mindworm and one spore launcher. Unlike playing on a Huge map, I didn't have vast expanses of unclaimed territory to go hunting in. I had the Data Angels to the west, and the Peacekeepers to the east. The Data Angels went to war with me fairly quickly and I was under a lot of pressure just trying to survive and hold them off. They took 1 of my cities with a mind control probe, and I never got it back before I quit, so the threat was real. Ultimately, they were outproducing me, which made me realize how weak my mindworms were as a weapons platform. I didn't have free ones, it was costly to produce new ones, and they didn't do well against comparably expensive enemy units.
Well, that's what playtesting is for. Attack odds for PSI will remain the same in my mod, at 3:2.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on November 26, 2018, 01:10:50 PM
Even when attacking from fungal squares.
This doesn't benefit natives. Attacking to fungus does.
With all of your other bonuses you should have 1.5 * 1.2 = 1.8 multiplier against 1.25 of 3-Res armor (disciplined) = 1.44 odds or 0.6 attack weight which is about 95% winning probability.
Post by: bvanevery on November 26, 2018, 05:27:18 PM
I'm testing version 1.26 of my mod, where the Gaians do not have any PSI bonus. They're just straight fighting like any +2 PLANET faction would. The unit attacked was Commando, not Disciplined. Commando is parity for Great Boil. The problem is, it's way easier for the AI to come up with Commando 3-Res units than it is for me to come up with Great Boils.
Post by: bvanevery on December 04, 2018, 04:56:42 PM
Under peaceful circumstances, you can afford to just sit around and wait for it to complete, but rushing with an Artifact is definitely appropriate in close quarters early combat. Like when you're the Morganites and have no weapons or probe teams, and the Usurpers are right next door making a directed research beeline for weapons and armor. I held them off with piles of Synthmetal Skirmishers and an internal rail network. I sent out ships to try to contact other humans, and eventually got a massive technology dump when I reached them and made contact with everyone.
I don't know if the AI can pull all that off, probably they'd just get kicked off the continent and restarted. But a human player can come up with creative ways to hold off an enemy and get ahead.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 16, 2018, 10:07:07 PM
I worked some time to polish the settings for this strategical mod. I've decided to extend it and include not only armor and weapon strength rearrangement but also reposition many game features in technology tree. I feel like this will bring them at the right time and make game more dynamic. Please read complete description attached. This is the first dirty version but it is playable. Please let me know about any bugs or any problem with the file.
I'd like to note one thing. This is not an exact and final mod. This is just an attempt to address some extremely overpowered or underpowered features and strategies. So I do not really care about small changes here and there. Therefore, I strongly encourage players to suggest their own small changes to adjust game playability or look/feel.
For example, I made native base attack-defense base odds 1:1 for all realms just to avoid extreme 3:2 attack favored odds. However, I do not really care about exact numbers there. It could be anything in between if it makes sense for players, etc.
So please feel free to contribute.
The mod was designed on top of Thinker mod. However, it could be applied to any exe mod.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 16, 2018, 10:09:26 PM
Post by: bvanevery on December 16, 2018, 10:33:13 PM
Post by: bvanevery on December 17, 2018, 12:14:23 AM
In 2102 I rush my production for 25 credits so that I can get moving. The fact that I know how to do this, and the stock AI doesn't, will also punish the AI.
MY 2109. I research Centauri Ecology. Since I kept the default Discover, Conquer focus to see what the game is like from an AI's perspective, this indicates that the historical problem of the Spartans never researching Formers, has been dealt with in this mod. I also realize, belatedly, that I blazed through the tech readout without reading what it says. I should slow down since this is a mod. I notice that the Weather Paradigm is available, which is weird after all these months of playing my own mod, where nobody can build any Secret Projects immediately.
MY 2114. I get lucky popping a pod and complete a Colony Pod I was working on. This makes me realize that the more expensive cost of Scout units, will make it more attractive to try to seek supply pods to complete units instantly. I design a Rover Former to take advantage of possible completions, although I will only build it for the first 10 minerals before switching it to something more economical.
MY 2124. I'm realizing I started without the Spartan's usual Scout Rover unit. Fine by me, I don't give them that in my mod either.
MY 2127. I research Nonlinear Mathematics. I've only built 3 cities and haven't met anyone yet. If I meet anyone else anytime soon, I figure I'll be in a trivial position to kick their ass. This tech also gives me this mod's version of Fundamentalist. It gives +1 MORALE, +1 PLANET, +1 PROBE, and -3 RESEARCH. I don't choose it at this time, as clearly, I have no one to victimize. Getting mindworms walking around might be nice, but I have gained a Unity Rover as is, and don't really have any issue immediately exploring my environment. Although it looks like I've got plenty of land mass to explore, I'm thinking that getting a ship might be important.
southern earthquake |
MY 2133. I was on almost a small island, except for a land extension running north up to the Garland Crater. That looks like it goes on quite a ways, so I was probably on a peninsula. Now an earthquake has raised land to the south. I may now be on an isthmus.
I have not been rushing Colony or Former production anymore. Rather, I have been waiting for my Scouts to find good city sites and for my roads to reach those sites. The cloning of 2 of my Scouts, and finding a Rover, has mitigated the problem of whether I'll have a defensive unit for a new city. Plus I have 171 cash.
MY 2137. The southern extension didn't touch any new land, it's still ocean down there. I am either on a north-south peninsula or island. I have not made it to the Garland Crater yet. I begin the Weather Paradigm as I have a base with a size 7 mine. It's expensive, 440 minerals, but I doubt I have anyone challenging me for it this early and I've got the minerals. This is the old school way to trash the AI, get started on those projects before they even have the chance. This is why in my mod, nobody is allowed to start until Tier 3 techs.
I am starting to wonder about negative effects on AIs if they choose Fundamentalist and get the -3 RESEARCH penalty. A big consequence of slow research is not getting techs to start Secret Projects with. In my mod, I've set the factions to be a lot less constrained about what social choices they make. They usually do not have secondary compulsions, like the Believers being forced to pursue PROBE for instance. They can usually do whatever they want. Thus unconstrained, Fundamentalist is a popular choice in my mod. Most AI factions spend some time as Fundamentalist, some switch to something else eventually. But these factions look like they have the usual constraints on them, so I may not see that many Fundies.
MY 2138. I gain Doctrine: Flexibility from a supply pod. That means this mod made the wise choice of having it be a Tier 1 tech. AIs will not have egregious problems getting off of islands, although in my experience, it can still slow them down from expanding much.
MY 2140. I am on an island. I am not connected to the Garland Crater up north, although it's just off my shore. That supply pod that gave me Doctrine: Flexibility was my last one, so I got lucky. If I hadn't, my Discover, Conquer focus might have prevented me from getting off the island for a long time. Or rather, would have prevented an AI. I look up the research weights to verify this, and find it's a pure Explore tech, growth=3. Anyone not doing Explore is going to be crippled by this. I don't think that's a good choice, nor accurate in terms of what a foil chassis does for you. A navy is a way of conquering. Making a sea base and getting access to easy ocean energy, is a kind of wealth production.
Now this mod, I realize, has made a major change in research foci compared to what I'm used to. "Economic" techs are placed under Discover, not Build. I don't know how that will play out. I happen to be a Discover faction, odd as that was in the original game. In my mod the Spartans are a pure Conquer faction. I will keep this game's default choices, in order to see how that pans out for an AI.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 17, 2018, 01:21:23 AM
:)
So far I see that you don't have any specific suggestions, just observations.
I agree that scout worth 20 minerals doesn't let you build it outright anymore. Rarely I saw one of my new bases being destroyed by wild worm but on a large scale it is not significant. I also didn't notice it affecting AI much.
Unfortunately, with the weird unit cost formula it is either this of huge imbalance in other military units.
In Yutzi's mod the number of free minerals can be changed as well.
Research goals are easy set for each technology. If you want something to be sure discovered then set its value high in all areas. This way regardless of research priorities it will get eventually discovered. This is the case with Centauri Ecology, for example. It is set high in all areas just because terraforming benefits everything. This also can be easily adjusted.
Some SE choices have TALENT embedded but this is not visible in the SE screen. Fundamentalist is one of such choices with +1 TALENT. Help to live through war times.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 17, 2018, 01:24:35 AM
Initial note, looking over stuff. Directions in installation.txt are wrong with respect to alphax-modified.txt. That file would have to be renamed to alphax.txt. Well, maybe Thinker .exe patch is handling things differently, but that's what you'd have to do for a straight SMAC installation. Which is what I'll be testing.
Damn. I cannot do anything right first time. Can I?
Renamed it to alphax.txt in archive and reattached.
Post by: bvanevery on December 17, 2018, 01:28:21 AM
my death tech |
MY 2141. I'm starting to wonder if the weapons section of this tech tree is balanced. This seems awfully early to get a Gatling gun. Where's the armor to defend against this? I wonder if any cost change has been made to mitigate this, like I can have a weapon of doom but it'll cost me everything to produce.
More concerning is the early Living Refinery. +2 SUPPORT is a powerful ability to gain, let alone this early in the game. I have a 2nd mineral site at my disposal, that I'm starting to mine now. I predict I won't have any problem completing this and the Weather Paradigm, no matter how expensive they are. I was going to build a Command Center on my 2nd pile of minerals and use it to crank out trained troops, but I'll do that somewhere else instead. I don't have anybody to fight yet anyways.
In fact the Living Refinery is cheaper than the Weather Paradigm, so I switch production, as it is clearly more valuable. Not that I don't want the WP but if I see any competition at all, priorities are crystal clear. I still say I'll easily get them both.
competition |
MY 2146. Roze starts on the Weather Paradigm. I already did, and with a stock .exe, I am almost certain to do better at minerals than the AI will. The AI generally doesn't know how to identify the best mineral deposit, build a city there, and get cranking on a Secret Project. They just build their stuff "wherever" and they don't tend to get the job done in time. If you start at the same time they do, you've pretty much beat them.
MY 2149. The Cyborgs arrive by Transport. They're Solicitous, and want to make a Pact to go to war against the University. I need a victim for my MORALE and excessive weaponry, so I agree! With my luck they'll be on the other side of the map but whatever, worth a try. Realistically I'm building out these 2 Secret Projects for now.
The Cyborgs are a pipsqueak next door neighbor. Tiny island start. This is why I modded the world generator settings, I put a lot of time into that. It bears remembering that this is a Huge planet. They want to borrow money. Since I do not feel threatened by Roze's pathetic attempt to build the Weather Paradigm, I agree. I'm about to start fishing supply pods out of the water anyways. Soon I'll have plenty of money.
She has 4 techs I don't have. She just traded me Doctrine: Loyalty for my Doctrine: Mobility. 'Cuz, you know, Cyborgs. They don't do stupid things like that in my mod for some reason. Probably the Tier 3 delay and a fair amount of cross-listing of research weights for some things. Now I can add the Command Nexus to my possible list of acquisitions. I only have so many minerals though.
I can't trade my other techs to her because of my SPs. I buy Social Psych from her for 100. Her "empire" is even more pathetic than I saw at first glance. She's got 1 city on 1 island, and has her 2nd city on a 2nd island shared with University Base. They're close by, within Transport range. But I'll be busy fishing and building SPs for a bit.
MY 2150. I switch to the sweeet new Police State. +2 POLICE, +1 SUPPORT, +1 INDUSTRY, only -1 EFFIC. With only 6 highly centralized bases on a Huge map, my income and research per turn doesn't even change.
MY 2152. I read that restrictions, such as on nutrients, go away with various Tier 1 techs. I'm not sure what tech I got to make that so, but I can build a 3 nutrient Rolling Rainy farm just fine. Helps with that size 7 mine I've got.
I forgot that in this mod, Forests take 12 turns to build. I really hadn't noticed. Usual drill is to put 1 Forest by a new city at the beginning of the game. First a city expands with farmland and 2 nutrients to get to size 2. Then it hits the Forest and gets more minerals to more rapidly complete a Colonist. Wet, lather, rinse, repeat. It's one of the secrets to my success.
The Hive must seriously suck. Their graph rating is lower than the Cyborgs, and I can see exactly how bad they are. Everyone else is pretty much at parity. The Believers and the Gaians are the last 2 factions in the game.
MY 2155. I complete a Command Center and start cranking out trained Scouts. Production is not high but I don't think it particularly needs to be, they're just garrison troops. Rather than wait for a better city site, I decide to start the Command Nexus in my capitol. Doesn't have great production, but it'll get better as I build up a police presence, and it's good to start early.
MY 2158. Have missile launchers, will travel.
MY 2159. Consciousness gets their city next to University Base utterly crushed. It's gone.
MY 2161. I buy Planetary Networks form the Cyborgs for 100. I design a Foil Probe Team and start production.
Post by: bvanevery on December 17, 2018, 02:22:45 AM
just wait |
Holy crap! Mindworm be like, you die now. Well I've playtested 1:1 Psi odds before and my conclusion was, just don't attack. Being Disciplined ala Spartan clearly isn't enough to attack with. +2 MORALE is stronger on defense than offense anyways.
MY 2165. Met the Believers at sea. They immediately demanded that I sink their Transport, no negotiation. How can I refuse? Except the interesting wrinkle, everyone's got 2 as base armor, and I only sent out the cheapest Laser Skimship I could make. So I actually did refuse.
MY 2164. Having Spore Launchers or roving Mindworms trash your forests is much more obnoxious in this mod, because of the time it takes to build them.
MY 2177. I complete the Living Refinery. I get a movie of asteroids I of course haven't visited yet.
MY 2192. I've realized that because everyone starts with 2 armor, there are probably no Non-Combat units. Probe teams, for instance, probably can protect cities for no support. I say "probably" because I think they'd have to be the only kind of unit doing the protecting. If there's an ordinary defender and it gets killed, probe teams still die with them.
I'm wondering why my game suddenly won't task switch when pressing CTRL-ALT-TAB under Windows 10. It worked fine when I started. Is a USB drive interfering? Maybe because after removing that, things are working again.
The AI likes to build these Armor 2 probe teams. Unfortunately they've lost their characteristic probe team unit artwork. They look like Speeders with a probe weapon on them. Which of course is what they are.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 17, 2018, 02:25:20 AM
MY 2141. I'm starting to wonder if the weapons section of this tech tree is balanced. This seems awfully early to get a Gatling gun. Where's the armor to defend against this? I wonder if any cost change has been made to mitigate this, like I can have a weapon of doom but it'll cost me everything to produce.
I chained weapons one after another and armors one after another but not with each other. So it is possible to get advanced weapon earlier than armor or vice versa. There is no defense against this. Even if we chain them all together still one faction can advance technology and get ahead in weapon or armor. This mod is still a slightly better than boxed version where even the average weapon/armor progression was not thought well.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 17, 2018, 02:26:48 AM
More concerning is the early Living Refinery. +2 SUPPORT is a powerful ability to gain, let alone this early in the game. I have a 2nd mineral site at my disposal, that I'm starting to mine now. I predict I won't have any problem completing this and the Weather Paradigm, no matter how expensive they are. I was going to build a Command Center on my 2nd pile of minerals and use it to crank out trained troops, but I'll do that somewhere else instead. I don't have anybody to fight yet anyways.
I don't think it is too powerful. Just +2 minerals per base. Its value declines with time. So allowing it later is essentially a waste.
I respectfully disagree it is more valuable than Weather Paradigm. WP gives you advanced terraforming with boreholes and condesers which keep adding more and more to your bases outrunning measly +2 minerals in long run. I agree that 2 minerals could be a big bonus very early when your base production is about 2-4 minerals anyway. Well, I can move it a little later than but not too late, though.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 17, 2018, 02:36:04 AM
I am starting to wonder about negative effects on AIs if they choose Fundamentalist and get the -3 RESEARCH penalty. A big consequence of slow research is not getting techs to start Secret Projects with.
SE is soooooooo gray area. I won't even try to defend my choices. If you think -3 RESEARCH is too much - let me know. I'll change it. Have no preference myself.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 17, 2018, 03:06:09 AM
Now this mod, I realize, has made a major change in research foci compared to what I'm used to. "Economic" techs are placed under Discover, not Build. I don't know how that will play out. I happen to be a Discover faction, odd as that was in the original game. In my mod the Spartans are a pure Conquer faction. I will keep this game's default choices, in order to see how that pans out for an AI.
That's right. I made this choice with my open eyes. See explanation in readme. Specifically because economy and labs are convertible to some extent. Essentially building Energy Bank everywhere and then moving slider to labs a little bit is the same as building Network Nodes. Besides, pure energy increase benefit both economy and labs.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 17, 2018, 03:07:38 AM
Holy crap! Mindworm be like, you die now. Well I've playtested 1:1 Psi odds before and my conclusion was, just don't attack. Being Disciplined ala Spartan clearly isn't enough to attack with. +2 MORALE is stronger on defense than offense anyways.
As I said I have no strong preference about it. Still 3:2 is to much for me but anything in between should do.
Post by: bvanevery on December 17, 2018, 03:36:32 AM
outrunning measly +2 minerals in long run.
But my SUPPORT is now +3 under Police State. If I can make bigger bases, I can have as many units as the size of the base. Granted, as of 2192 my biggest base is size 3 and I haven't populated my island yet. Secret Projects are sucking up all my efforts.
Post by: bvanevery on December 17, 2018, 03:38:16 AM
Besides, pure energy increase benefit both economy and labs.
But AI Morgan is still a pure Build faction. How is he supposed to make any money?
Post by: bvanevery on December 17, 2018, 03:39:52 AM
As I said I have no strong preference about it. Still 3:2 is to much for me but anything in between should do.
Well the net effect is I didn't even need Trance to trivially defend myself, at least as the Spartans with +2 MORALE, sitting in a base.
Post by: bvanevery on December 17, 2018, 03:49:01 AM
USB interference theory is out. Now suspecting that switching from a Secret Project video derails the CTRL-ALT-TAB task switching. Turning off Secret Project videos.
MY 2195. Got the new Free Market. It's anti-war, -2 MORALE. POLICE penalty isn't as bad, only -2. PLANET is still -3. Won't be changing to this obviously.
Not used to dealing with a Democratic Roze, since I made Thought Control her obsession in my mod. She comes from nowhere and sinks my Transport with an Artifact on it. Sadly, she's my immediate southern neighbor. I hope she doesn't give me awful Probe Team difficulties. I'm not really in the mood to have my cities taken over, especially since the ones facing nearest her, have my Secret Projects in them.
my projects |
MY 2200. I've built more Secret Projects, but the Weather Paradigm has slipped past me. I thought the Human Genome Project is more important to have. I'm still working on the rather expensive Command Nexus. Police State is getting old, as I just can't seem to make enough Scouts to police anybody. I've gotten a Bureaucracy warning. I've started to build Recreation Commons everywhere and will likely ditch Police State after I'm done with the Command Nexus.
MY 2202. Got the new Planned. This mod is pretty tight on EFFIC. Most you can get from Politics is +1 for Democratic. Most you can get from Economics is +1 for Green. Police State and Planned each have -1. Planned offers bonuses of +2 INDUSTRY, +1 GROWTH, +1 SUPPORT. I don't think I can afford a hit to EFFIC though.
MY 2204. Roze lands 2 Unity Rovers on my shore. These are more annoying than usual because everything comes with 2 Armor. I can't simply kill them. I've never bothered to make an offensive unit because I've been too busy, haven't completed the Command Nexus, and haven't had anyone making any serious war effort against me. The danger is she could pillage my big mines. Fortunately my building of the Human Genome Project gives me sufficient happiness to move some defensive units around without anyone going into revolt. I move a Scout into position from another city to establish Zones of Control and prevent these units from going anywhere. If they pillage the square they're on, fine. Maybe they will pack up and leave. Better yet, maybe they'll suicide against me.
In trying to build an offensive unit, I've realized a quirk of this Armor 2 regime. There's no such thing as a cheap offensive "glass cannon" unit, such as a traditional Speeder. I have to pay through the nose for armor that isn't even going to do me any good in real Speeder combat.
MY 2206. Roze is really getting irritating. She finally brought up a ship to shell my shores. I feel like I don't have any productivity at all. I just got a Chaos gun, but darned if I could afford to build it. Got the new Cybernetic to go along with it. +2 RESEARCH, +1 EFFIC, -1 ECONOMY, -2 POLICE. I don't think I need more research, I think I need more production of what I've already got.
I don't quite understand the new cost model. With +0 INDUSTRY a Chaos Skimship with strength 4 Synthmetal Armor costs me 70. A Chaos Rover with strength 2 armor costs me 100. With strength 4 armor, 110. This would seem to say, never build land units until you have to. Especially since the Readme said that ships get a 50% bonus for defending in port now. Stocking all your bases with ships would seem to be the one true strategy. It only wouldn't work inland.
MY 2208. Got Intellectual Integrity and the new Power. +1 MORALE, +1 POLICE, +1 SUPPORT, -2 INDUSTRY. Really not digging my production problem. I complete the Command Nexus with cash.
MY 2209. Got Industrial Automation and the new Wealth, but I can't use it, so don't know what it does.
MY 2211. Roze lands 4-4-1 units in some fungus, then blasts my pinning Scout, then occupies one of my big mines. I still don't have any unit to deal with this. My production is piss poor and taking way too long.
MY 2212. I finally get a Chaos Skimship together. The artillery barrage from this is enough to do some damage to those enemy armor 4 units. I'm only coming up with an Impact Speeder so I will need the weakening. It was built solely to take out the Unity Rovers. No point building mindworms because they've been offensively nerfed. Seems like an 8-4-1 is my only good land unit. I think I'm happy enough now, so I drop Police State in favor of Fundamentalist.
MY 2215. They wiped out my big mines, I couldn't do anything about it. I did kill their Unity Rovers though. I've badly wounded their 4-4-1s with chaos artillery fire, but I have to wait for my stupid Impact Rover to heal up again. I'm now Fundamentalist Power Cybernetic.
MY 2219. I finally slay the last interloper. I'm now Fundamentalist Planned Power Cybernetic. I'm making a lot of Chaos Skimships.
Post by: bvanevery on December 17, 2018, 06:01:38 AM
My 2227. Got the new Eudaimonic. +2 ECONOMY, -1 EFFIC, -1 MORALE, -1 GROWTH. I of course will not use it. I am wondering if this mod intends to make it difficult to pop boom.
Post by: bvanevery on December 17, 2018, 07:32:04 AM
I don't have a problem with the expensive forests. I do think it's a little over the top, and that doubling rather than tripling the cost of a forest might be more appropriate. But I didn't have any real difficulty planting forests, as only 1 is needed per city at the beginning. Forests will spread, especially if one pops a pod and gets forests from it. I had a pile of forests on the easternmost part of my island.
The sheer expense of these units takes some getting used to. That's a big part of why I quit. I'm definitely disadvantaged in this 1st game, not knowing how the system would work or turn out. I wouldn't have as much trouble a 2nd time around.
I think land units are too expensive compared to sea units.
I don't have a feeling for what's easy or difficult to discover, due to the research weights. The idea of making some things easy to learn, and other things hard to learn, is not really something that occurred to me. I just categorized things and then usually just called it "4" for the primary tech category. Really really important stuff, I made "5". I know that "0" completely blocks stuff from being discovered and I have designed around that. The only thing in my own tree that I made deliberately difficult to discover, is the Planetary Datalinks. I wanted it to be easy for someone researching Discover, and difficult but not impossible for everyone else. I seem to have succeeded in that dynamic.
I am concerned that some of the AI faction research foci may not have been adjusted to go along with the new sorting regime. How does Morgan make money if he doesn't Discover?
I do not like that mag tubes are not basically discoverable. The Believers came down to pester the north end of my island. Ordinarily I'd have rails to move troops to defend my interior. Instead they get to do damage to me because my cities are isolated, and I simply don't have the production to garrison everything. The only thing that prevented them from taking over my cities was my Elite double speed infantry movement.
Of course I am strongly mag tube biased. In my mod it's a Tier 2 tech. Historically I justify it by saying this is not the 19th century, we are not learning how to make steam engines for the 1st time ala Civ II. Game mechanically, my early mag tubes might be a bit much for some people's tastes, but I don't think I should have to be waiting around forever for them either.
I think some of the SE table choices are not balanced, but I suspend judgment on them for now. Like, -4 PROBE for Knowledge, really? If someone wants to Transcend they have to give all their tech and cities away? I'm doubting this is a good idea, but I didn't try it in my game.
Some of these Secret Projects are helluh expensive, to the point of being basically unbuildable. Frustration over the Planetary Energy Grid is part of why I quit. I don't think it should be easy to get, but I do think someone should be able to get it. AIs twiddled forever on it, taking cities out of any other kind of production. Same with me, until I got tired of that show and quit.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 17, 2018, 02:17:02 PM
outrunning measly +2 minerals in long run.
But my SUPPORT is now +3 under Police State. If I can make bigger bases, I can have as many units as the size of the base. Granted, as of 2192 my biggest base is size 3 and I haven't populated my island yet. Secret Projects are sucking up all my efforts.
Yep. I have thought about it meanwhile. Now I think it is at least same or more valuable than Human Genome. Do you say pricing it 50-60 would be fair?
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 17, 2018, 02:23:54 PM
Besides, pure energy increase benefit both economy and labs.
But AI Morgan is still a pure Build faction. How is he supposed to make any money?
Well, formally he is not "build" he is "earn money" faction. That is a confusion in original game. But that's fine.
One option is to adjust faction research priorities.
Another option is to return technology definitions back to original. I.e. prioritizing Industrial Economics as Build.
I don't mind either. Actually I think it would be better to synchronize with original division. This is more understandable for players and doesn't break my mod much. I'll do it.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 17, 2018, 02:27:49 PM
As I said I have no strong preference about it. Still 3:2 is to much for me but anything in between should do.
Well the net effect is I didn't even need Trance to trivially defend myself, at least as the Spartans with +2 MORALE, sitting in a base.
I agree. I was thinking to make it more attack oriented.
a) 9:8. It gives attacking side +1/8 boost - equivalent of 1 morale level upgrade. This is still pretty measly, though. I understand it myself.
b) 5:4. It gives attacking side +25% boost negating intrinsic city defense or sensor in field. I guess I'll stay with this one.
Besides, the attack/defense ratio for natives is mostly not to balance native attacks but to balance native warfare one faction against other.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 17, 2018, 02:34:00 PM
MY 2194. Got the new Green. +1 EFFIC, +2 PLANET, -1 GROWTH, -2 INDUSTRY. The latter is a pretty steep penalty. I know mindworms with high PLANET are pretty good but that seems like a lot of penalty to swallow. I will wait and see. This is not likely to be a mindworm slinging game for me, not my faction's core strength.
Let me reiterate once more. SE are so gray area that I do not even defend my position on it but just collect what people would propose and set it accordingly.
My take on SE balance is that it cannot be balanced at all across the whole course of the game. All effects are more or less declining with empire development in relation to overall economy. The only one that growth is EFFICIENCY that skyrockets due to it's ability to decrease corruption which becomes a huge issue toward the end of the game. So anything SE with + EFFICIENCY will be very appealing later on. You cannot do anything about it.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 17, 2018, 02:40:22 PM
I don't quite understand the new cost model. With +0 INDUSTRY a Chaos Skimship with strength 4 Synthmetal Armor costs me 70. A Chaos Rover with strength 2 armor costs me 100. With strength 4 armor, 110. This would seem to say, never build land units until you have to. Especially since the Readme said that ships get a 50% bonus for defending in port now. Stocking all your bases with ships would seem to be the one true strategy. It only wouldn't work inland.
The cost model is not mine - it is hardcoded. I have only changed costs of some equipment.
Due to this model the mixed units (weapon and armor) cost grows quadratically. That applies to ALL defenders, mixed attackers-defenders and ships, of course. You'll see later ships with catch up with high end attacker in price. Early ships are quite cheap, though. Which is not that bad, I think.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 17, 2018, 02:59:24 PM
I realize that this mod doesn't have Foil Probe Teams, so I don't have to worry about my sea bases being subverted like in my own mod.
My 2227. Got the new Eudaimonic. +2 ECONOMY, -1 EFFIC, -1 MORALE, -1 GROWTH. I of course will not use it. I am wondering if this mod intends to make it difficult to pop boom.
My text mod doesn't but I am playing on top of Thinker and it does.
Yes, you can reach pop boom only with golden age.
Post by: bvanevery on December 17, 2018, 05:12:47 PM
Now I think it is at least same or more valuable than Human Genome. Do you say pricing it 50-60 would be fair?
In my mod the Living Refinery costs 50, but it's a late game tech. You have to be in space to get it, and that comes late game in my mod. I think you have a point that it's not so useful to make people wait as long as I have, because by then, mineral production is generally much higher anyways. But I also think you're giving this away way too early.
Post by: bvanevery on December 17, 2018, 05:19:43 PM
My take on SE balance is that it cannot be balanced at all across the whole course of the game.
I think I did it. Mainly by insisting that every single +1 or -1 matters a great deal, and giving a very limited range of options so that you have to struggle to reach things like +3 SUPPORT or +3 PLANET for instance.
Quote
All effects are more or less declining with empire development in relation to overall economy.
I don't think the point is to have any SE effect have a great deal of value forever. After all, you will eventually have an army large enough, or an income large enough, to do anything no matter what the settings. But the rate at which you get to such an exalted state, is affected by early game SE choices.
Post by: bvanevery on December 17, 2018, 05:23:21 PM
Early ships are quite cheap, though. Which is not that bad, I think.
I think it's bad when paired with Chaos guns, which are doom weapons. I mean really, they're 2x stronger than the predominant armor. If it weren't for my production limitations the game would be over. As it was, the Data Angels could do nothing whatsoever about me taking their 8 sea bases away.
Actually between my strength 4 armor and my +4 MORALE, the few ships they fielded to try to counterattack me, they'd just dissolve into nothingness against my hulls. They did eventually steal my Chaos technology because of my lack of ability to plan my production. I predict that a 2nd time around, knowing what things cost and what I'm in for, they'd never get the chance. Not like I didn't have a bunch of Foil Probe Teams as it was, I was just very distracted and uncertain about how to use them.
I'm realizing that Industrial Automation came early enough, that I could have gone back to "old school" mining and supply crawling to deal with my production problems. I don't tend to think about that lately because I.A. comes late enough in my mod that by then, you're probably not worried about your city's productivity. It's more of a "finish Secret Projects" thing to me.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 17, 2018, 06:56:54 PM
Now I think it is at least same or more valuable than Human Genome. Do you say pricing it 50-60 would be fair?
In my mod the Living Refinery costs 50, but it's a late game tech. You have to be in space to get it, and that comes late game in my mod. I think you have a point that it's not so useful to make people wait as long as I have, because by then, mineral production is generally much higher anyways. But I also think you're giving this away way too early.
Good. I'll price it at 50.
As for timing, in my mod it comes at approximately 20% of tech tree. I wouldn't say it is too early because it takes some time to build it as well with current higher price. I can move it to ~30% but not later, I suppose. It loses value beyond about 2/3 of the game anyway so not much time left appreciating it.
Post by: bvanevery on December 17, 2018, 07:12:21 PM
I'm about to start a 2nd test game. To demonstrate how I can fully exploit weaknesses I'm now aware of. Shiiips!
Huge planet, 50%..70% water as before, average settings, Transcend, random opponents. I draw the Believers. Been awhile since I've played with inherent +2 SUPPORT. Gotta watch the -1 PLANET and not be so quick to pop pods with Colonists. I've got absolutely terrible land on a tiny island. I'm the runt of the power graph.
Ok, so, it's really irritating when I'm on a crap start like this, it takes 12 turns to build 1 Forest, and then an Isle of the Deep shows up to drop a mindworm on that 1 Forest. And I can't go attack it, because even though I have the Scouts to go do it, they are not strong enough to make an attack. Instead I have to wait for the mindworm to attack me, which will inevitably result in my trivial victory.
I am modding this immediately to 8 turns to make a Forest. 12 is ridiculous. I didn't object as much in my previous game, because I didn't get such an awful start my previous game. While I'm at it, I'll change the Living Refinery to cost 50.
Thinking myself clever, I step forwards with 1 Scout, waiting for the attack and leaving my Weather Paradigm committed city with only a Former in it. I neglected to check the stack. There are 2 mindworms. The 1st one dies against me, the 2nd one kills me. Now my city only has a Former in it, and I've done nothing to stop the mindworm from tearing up the Forest. Except mod the game to only take 8 turns to do it over again. Joy.
MY 2152. Someone else starts the Weather Paradigm as well. I only have 3 cities, no food in the city producing the Weather Paradigm, it's undefended, and I haven't been able to put a mine on the mineral deposit yet. I've kept the Explore, Conquer research focus to best understand how the AI would fare. Not well, no ships yet. And I don't think the AI knows how to do a "land raising instead of ships" strategy either.
I suppose a saving grace is, everything has armor 2, even Formers. So I bet my base is actually not "undefended", as the Former won't suffer a non-combat penalty.
I don't know if it was intended, but I'm realizing that because I have to defend to win a mindworm fight, I won't be able to collect Planet Pearls from the fight. This has consequences for mindworm "farming". It depends what you think the goal is. To make money, or to raise a PLANET friendly army and pop pods? This quirk changes the former, but not the latter.
A more serious, consequential quirk is now that we're past the opening stage of native life weakness, I can't kill a Spore Launcher. Not with 1 untrained Scout at least. I do have extras I can bring up, but it will take a few turns. This is likely to be a huge problem for the AI. It is known to have problems dealing with Spore Launchers anyways, with 1 capable of impeding the colonization of an entire fledgling empire. Doesn't happen in my own mod for some reason, something about what units are getting produced when. But I did see a long term "Spore Launcher shelling" against the Cyborgs in my last game. They did nothing about it, forever.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 17, 2018, 07:40:50 PM
In my mod the Living Refinery costs 50
It didn't take any time to build it in my game, but of course it wasn't priced at 50.
What is it then?
Post by: bvanevery on December 17, 2018, 07:44:51 PM
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 17, 2018, 07:46:33 PM
"My game" meant my play of your mod. It was whatever you had it set at. Looking it up now... it was 30.
Got it. Well, as I said, I'll set it to 50 in my next version.
Post by: bvanevery on December 17, 2018, 08:10:45 PM
I killed the Spore Launcher, but the interloping mindworm remains. It of course ate the forest I worked so hard to make earlier. It will take probably 7 turns before I can walk a Scout over the non-road squares and fungus to intervene. That's with +2 SUPPORT and 7 Formers active, 1 of which is defending the Weather Paradigm. I am still the runt of the power graph. The Cyborgs are doing almost as badly as me, somewhere.
MY 2158. The mindworm commits suicide against my Former in the city, ending the problem. Now the only problem is getting a garrison unit up there before citizens revolt. Although, not a problem, because nobody's ever eaten a thing except that forest for a few turns. I complete my mine, but I bet I don't have 43 turns to finish the Weather Paradigm though. It's also going to be pretty sad if I don't have ships by then.
Something to put in perspective about game costs, is even with my change, it takes 8 turns to plant a Forest and only 6 turns to remove Fungus. I guess Earth trees suck?
MY 2166. I research Doctrine: Flexibility, and the Peacekeepers blow away the Consciousness. I'm no longer the worst faction in the game.
MY 2174. I pop my 1st pod at sea, and get an Isle with 2 mindworms on it. I'm realizing that they're going to come ashore, I won't be able to attack them, they will attack me twice or tear up land, and that could kill any 1 Scout I have defending my city. Or not, depending on defense and training of the Scout. I don't have a feeling for how trivial city defense is yet. It may change as time goes on. Well I've got a Disciplined Scout at that base, about the best I'm going to do, so we'll see.
MY 2175. Surprisingly, the Isle sits at sea and doesn't move. Perhaps because it's at the very bottom of the map.
MY 2178. Cha Dawn shows up, makes war on me, drops a mindworm larva next to my city. Odds readout says if I attack we're even. Meaning in the real world, I lose. This implies helplessness to pillaging in the face of mindworms. Fortunately they landed on unused rocky terrain.
If Cha Dawn is prowling the water, sea bases are going to be vulnerable.
MY 2179. Cha Dawn elects to attack a Former and takes 90% wounds in the process. I finish it off. I research Nonlinear Mathematics. I can have Particle Impactors and I can go Fundamentalist. I'm already at -2 RESEARCH, that would put me at -5. Never learn anything again. I'm thinking I'm not in that much of a war yet to be worth it. But the AI would certainly do it, in which case, the fate of the Believers with this lousy start would probably be sealed.
This emphasizes to me that better map generation settings, are one of my mod's most important features.
MY 2183. I find my 2nd Artifact, fishing it out of the water. Once back to base, I'll have enough to insta-complete the Weather Paradigm. This suggests a strategy of expanding my land by attaching islands next to me, rather than doing so many sea colonies.
MY 2187. Using a multi-Transport convoy technique, I get the Artifact back to base. I instantly complete the Weather Paradigm. Simultaneously, Cha Dawn shows up with an Isle and lands a 4-2-2 next to that city. Because everyone has strength 2 armor, such interlopers are hard to kill. I have only just started to work on an Impact Skimship, because that is way cheaper than land units. If they destroy my size 1 Weather Paradigm city, I will quit this game and declare the land to sea cost ratios unusable. It is way too much production pressure on factions that get unreasonable starts. I've got +2 SUPPORT, I shouldn't be having this level of difficulty for Chrissakes.
I disband a Transport and several Formers in order to complete my Impact Skimship by next turn. Much will depend on whether they choose to attack immediately or pillage.
MY 2188. They had 2 units, I didn't notice that. A 4-2-1 in addition to the 4-2-2. The 4-2-2 chooses to fry New Jerusalem, nothing I can do about it. This isn't a strategy game, this is a show-up-and-grief-me game. Yes I could have groveled when Cha Dawn first showed up, but no, I wasn't going to. That's not a fun game. It also didn't seem to be justified at the time. Why should I grovel for 1 mindworm I know is going to die?
MY 2189. New Jerusalem is gone. Additionally, it healed the attacking 4-2-2 in the process. Now it's likely to do it to another city, and again, nothing I can do about it. I've got a 4-2-1 completed to defend the Weather Paradigm city, but a wild Isle with a mindworm is also inbound in that area. Not something I triggered, just bad luck from someone else's unknown activity.
I move a Former forward, hoping it'll be attacked instead of the next city. I take a chance and put my Green Impact Squad in the city as well, hoping that the enemy Speeder will go for the Former and not my new unit. Technically I could use the Designate Defender option in a crisis like this. However I think it's piss poor game design that such a tweaky thing exists at all, and I refuse to use it. I shouldn't have to know obscure options and micro-micro manage a game to prevail in a battle. If I lose here, it would spur me to quit this game and get on with writing a proper game in its place.
My Impact Skimship has a long way to sail around some fungus to provide any intervening artillery support. I don't have enough money to rush the Recon Rover prototype, nor would that break through fresh armor in any event. The point was to make the cost of an Impact Rover unit viable in the future.
I don't know what to do with my completed Sea Colony Pod, because of all the naval threats. It's milling around exploring. Very unsatisfying and very wasteful.
A small break: a sea supply pod completes a 4-2-1 I had just started to build. So now I have the force to dispose of the aggressor units, if I can just corner them.
MY 2190. The 4-2-2 makes the irrational choice of moving onto a Forest square without a road. The 4-2-1 moved in a similarly pointless manner away from the front. Did the AI get confused by something? Old orders to move to New Jerusalem, which is now gone?
Meanwhile a pre-boil mindworm lands. I have my doubts that can kill it, and I bet if I move next to it, it can kill me. However I have no minerals left in the Weather Paradigm city, and I need to keep it from pillaging my Sensor Array and my Forest. Standing on rocky terrain, with the Sensor Array next to me under the mindworm, might be enough defense. We shall see. To really stack the odds, I'll do some unit shuffling to get my designated victim onto the rocky terrain next to the river. The victim is Disciplined, another hope for victory.
MY 2191. The defense plan worked. Mindworm gone. The 4-2-2 moves foward onto a forest, which I'm now realizing isn't such a bad defensive measure because it does have armor. It threatens 1 of my bases by open terrain. I move a Scout onto a Forest in range of a Sensor Array, forcing hopefully a not as good fight for him, and preventing him from directly attacking my city. He could go towards a 2nd city, but he can't attack it with full movement. Meaning in the real world, he won't.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 17, 2018, 09:20:33 PM
Something to put in perspective about game costs, is even with my change, it takes 8 turns to plant a Forest and only 6 turns to remove Fungus. I guess Earth trees suck?
I've explained forest cost in readme. In short, I believe, it should cost about the same as a rocky mine with road since it gives same number of resources.
Post by: bvanevery on December 17, 2018, 09:59:05 PM
A forest is useful to an early city, but you cannot grow with them. That's their liability. I agree that they can be considered too cheap as is, but tripling their cost is way too expensive. They are not worth the same as a Condenser or raising terrain 1 level.
I've documented what it's like to be griefed by random factors in an early game, things beyond your control. Make things too painful for people to do, and they start disliking your version of the game, I wager. Granted, some people are actually looking for masochism, but I think most aren't. There's a difference between being challenged and being griefed; the game designer must walk a line between those things. If things are a drag to do, and then you get clobbered in ways you can't do anything about, that's being griefed. A challenge is when you have the ability to react and overcome.
Things to consider: would someone new to the game like this?
Also, would a non-expert player like this? Like they sorta know the game, they played it some in the past, they picked it up at GOG for $1.49 a few days ago, and now they're thinking about trying out your mod? "Forests take 12 turns, WTF??!" Well maybe they don't even notice it so much, or blow a gasket about it. But what if they get bored because nothing is getting done... that's almost the worst way for mod interest to die, as you never really find out why someone lost interest and put it down.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 17, 2018, 10:35:52 PM
Are you using rocky mines in my mod? If yes, then this is good as it is another viable option.
Do you sometimes decide whether to build forest or rocky mine? If yes, then I've achieved my greater goal: gave challenge to the player to find best option in current circumstances. Now this is not the competition of someone who knows exploits against someone who doesn't. Such competition is won even before game starts. My mod requires to beat AI with the thinking on your feet. I personally feel it every move I am playing it. And that is what I enjoy.
I can change it to 10 or 8 if you think it is better. For me it is largely irrelevant as even a single former per base still build improvements faster than base population growth. Even with these prices you still have free cycles to build connection road and other additional stuff.
Post by: bvanevery on December 17, 2018, 11:54:53 PM
Are you still using forests in my mod? If yes, then they are not overpriced.
I'm not playing your 1.0 mod anymore. :D As I posted several posts ago, I changed the costs of forests to 8 and the Living Refinery to 50. Call it 1.0+.
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Are you using rocky mines in my mod?
I don't use rocky mines in anybody's mod, or game, until I've got Hybrid Forests and there's no other land for a city to work. I am really leery of the ecological consequences of too many minerals. I've been through too many mindworm debacles, too many floods. Even when it's not a debacle but the occasional Rolling Rainy Farm being destroyed, that's work I have to do over again. I hand work every single square in the game. If I have to do things over again, I personally feel the pain.
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Do you sometimes decide whether to build forest or rocky mine?
Never. The only reason to build a rocky mine is if it's sitting on a minerals bonus. Of course I build those immediately, at the beginning of the game. Otherwise, forests are always superior to mines. In particular, a city with a big Nutrient bonus and a pile of forest, is worth way more than mines.
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I can change it to 10 or 8 if you think it is better.
I have no doubt in my mind that 8 is better than 12. I can live with 8. That kind of price is not insane, given the advantages of a forest. It's a matter of taste but it's not insane.
Also, counting the cost of building a road shouldn't be part of your thinking. I have to build roads when planting forests too. I build forests on flat terrain, either arid or moist. That terrain may very well be where I need a road to go, and it's cheaper to build the road first, not later. It is also cheapest to build roads on flat terrain anyways, only takes 1 unit of work. Whether rocky + mine + road, or flat/rolling + forest + road, the comparison isn't just the resources. It's the resources and having a road. Roads are military infrastructure for conquest and defense. Of course they should be mag tubes soon. 8)
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For me it is largely irrelevant as even a single former per base still build improvements faster than base population growth. Even with these prices you still have free cycles to build connection road and other additional stuff.
It has been said that in my mod, the AI terraforms better. There could be several reasons for that. I wouldn't want to introduce anything in my mod that would reverse that trend, like make AIs waste a lot of time on forests. You may not notice this sort of thing if you're using Induktio's Thinker .exe, as I understand he has more competent terrain AI. But to the extent you want to reach a bigger audience, and not have the installation of Thinker as a hurdle to getting your own stuff installed and used, you might consider how your changes interact with the stock .exe.
I would also urge you to make improvements in the map generation settings. Factions are being crippled by the status quo.
Post by: bvanevery on December 18, 2018, 12:11:10 AM
In an expanding ocean radius around my island, I have not seen any Cult activity, nor settlements. I am made to wonder just how far Cha Dawn came to bother me. I have completed a land raise to a tiny island, creating room for 2 more cities, if I can just get these interlopers out of here. I will have to rebuild the Formers as I only have 1 now.
MY 2193. Turns out a "first issue" Recon Rover is enough to blow away a 4-2-2 on open ground. I'll take it. The 4-2-1 stops to pillage a farm that's not in use. I stop building the Impact Rover because that city doesn't have enough minerals to get it done anytime soon anyways. I will have to wait for my Recon Rover to heal, then corral and wipe out the last enemy unit.
A Unity Rover pops a pod and gets surrounded by 2 mindworms and a spore launcher. What's the point in even attacking anybody? I'll stand still and see how quickly I die.
A pod at sea sprouts an Isle. It will head to my shore, but at least I have a ship in the area to mess with it.
I need to choose somewhere to rebuild a Headquarters.
MY 2194. 1 mindworm dies, 1 mindworm gets half wounded killing me. I shell the Isle, wounding its mindworm cargo badly, but not affecting its spore launcher.
MY 2196. The 4-2-1 steps forward and dies. I start shelling the Isle from the safety of my city. I learn Superconductor, which also makes the Living Refinery available. I don't really need more SUPPORT though. Expanding and rebuilding my damaged "empire" is a much higher priority. The Cyborgs and I are still the runts of the game.
MY 2199. The spore launcher is slowly killing my ship in port. It's just tougher than I am, even though I thought under this mod I was supposed to have defensive bonuses in port. The spore launcher already destroyed my Sensor Array before I could get the ship in position in port, that's part of the problem. I don't have Formers to build a new one, due to all the damage I've taken from the Cult. I have to leave. Which means that chunk of forest I've been grousing about, is going to get destroyed again and I'll end up rebuilding it again. Some other forest has spread into the area, but that particular patch is a coastal river square. It's just rough being the geographical recipient of harm's way. The land must be some kind of big funnel sending me everyone else's junk.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 18, 2018, 12:22:15 AM
Here is new one.
Post by: bvanevery on December 18, 2018, 01:04:31 AM
I switch to RightTime 1.1. I already had 2 of the changes. The 3rd is a 5:4 Psi combat ratio.
I meet Domai. He's weak too, just not quite as weak as us. We trade a tech but he won't sign a Treaty. I sell him Lal's frequency.
MY 2207. The Isle that was bothering me decides to leave. Of course another is coming to take its place.
MY 2227. My lands are starting to resemble an empire, although of course I'm way behind. I've gotten a Bureaucracy warning. I have rebuilt a Headquarters in my big minerals + Weather Paradigm city. It is centrally located for the islands I'm bridging to. I am prototyping Missiles now. I'm wondering why I have ok weaponry and armor, 6 and 4, but not the ability to make artillery.
the creeps |
MY 2228. Domai finished the Empath Guild a few turns ago. He calls an election in favor of Cha Dawn. Zhakarov sells me a map of Cha Dawn's territory, and then I sign a Pact with him. He gives me Industrial Automation for free. The Planetary Transit System has already been built. Cha Dawn is south of Zhakarov and north of Lal. I pass the free tech to the Cyborgs in exchange for Ethical Calculus, and I loan them money. They provide a map of Free Drone territory. The Caretakers are northeast of me and north of the Drones, but none of my friends have a comm frequency. Domai is Seething, I don't want to talk to him! I send a Laser Skimship towards the Caretakers to meet them.
Wealth has a -1 EFFICiency penalty! I don't understand why. In my mod it gives a +1 EFFIC bonus. In this mod, also -2 MORALE. In exchange, a mere +1 ECONOMY and +1 INDUSTRY.
Supply Crawlers are really expensive, they cost 80. That won't affect the completion of Secret Projects, as whatever the expense, it transfers directly to the project. It does affect crawling mines and so forth though.
Post by: bvanevery on December 18, 2018, 02:43:49 AM
Interestingly, the Command Nexus has not been built yet. I do have 4 Artifacts sitting around, which is half of the 400 cost. I just fished a 5th, but it's deep in Domai's back waters, so may not make it home. I don't have any spare capacity to build an expensive Supply Crawler. Nevertheless I'm going to try to build the Command Nexus.
Domai destroys the Laser Skimship I had en route to the Caretakers, but at great cost to his own ship. I shall attempt to sail past him with a mere Transport.
I think it's time to accept that I am technologically ass-backwards and it's time to go Fundamentalist. If I were at peace, my main mission would be to connect to the large island that has the Garland Crater, then colonize it. New tech doesn't change that in any way.
Weird for Fundamentalist to be PLANET friendly, yet the Believers are PLANET unfriendly for being religious. I think Fundamentalist means too many things to people. Fundamentalist Christian, Fundamentalist Eco-Nazi, Fundamentalist mindworm cult, Fundamentalist U.N. Charter, Fundamentalist what to do with Manifold Six? In my mod, I got rid of the Believers' -1 PLANET penalty. None of the rest of the lore of the game supports this. Miriam's videos aren't anti-Planet, they're anti-Cyborg.
MY 2232. I gain 2 more Artifacts although getting them home will be tricky. A city becomes available to build something surplus. A Supply Crawler is expensive, 14 turns of effort, by which time I could have possibly completed the Command Nexus by other means.
Instead I design the 0-4-4 Skimship Probe Team. The armor doesn't cost any more than the 0-2-4 version, which seems like a flaw. Glad the AI doesn't know how to make these! Now I will go bug Domai. Maybe this is even the answer to holding him off, just get him to suicide against my ships. Note too, I will benefit from the PROBE exploit, these ships will be trained. And any increases in base probe team morale in the tech tree; I removed all of those from my mod.
I learned last game, that naval power is the way to exploit this mod. Now we'll see if I can put it into practice, even given the seriously bad start I had.
I whine to Zhakarov again, and he gives me Centauri Empathy. I'm such a crybaby. It gives Green. With a -2 INDUSTRY penalty, I don't feel it's all that helpful for a war effort though. I also wonder if that's too onerous for the traditional PLANET friendly factions.
I now realize I'm benefiting from an undisplayed extra TALENT given by Fundamentalist.
MY 2235. I don't manage to make contact with the Caretakers, but I see a Drone 4-2-1 marching around on their land, so perhaps they are at war. Far to the east in Drone territory, my Transport with an Artifact pulls out of the Sargasso Sea and begins heading home.
MY 2237. I contact the Caretakers. They sign a Treaty and sell me High Energy Chemistry. I whine to Zhakarov again and he hands me Doctrine: Initiative. The Maritime Control Center has not been built yet. It is even more expensive than the Command Nexus though, so I think I'll stick with the original plan. I design a Destroyer Probe Team and a Plasma Coastal and get started on prototypes in 2 coastal cities.
MY 2238. The Cyborgs conquer a minor Peacekeeper city and steal Gene Splicing from them. I trade them for it.
MY 2240. 2 more Artifacts have made it home, although they're not to the Command Nexus city yet. A Drone Plasma Coastal attacks one of my Sea Formers and actually dies.
MY 2243. The Cyborgs complete the Command Nexus before I can bring my Artifacts to the appropriate city. I switch to the Maritime Control Center like everyone else.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 18, 2018, 04:10:19 AM
Wealth has a -1 EFFICiency penalty! I don't understand why. In my mod it gives a +1 EFFIC bonus. In this mod, also -2 MORALE. In exchange, a mere +1 ECONOMY and +1 INDUSTRY.
There is no why in games in general and in SE composition in particular. I tried to keep them as close to box game as possible or, at least, keep the main element like +2 ECONOMY in Free Market.
Read my readme. There is a section about SE composition there. In short, EFFICIENCY and ECONOMY are two strongest effects. I tried to negate one with another. So you never see them with same sign in any of my SE choices.
I tried to balance models by spreading effects across them evenly. Looks like I've more or less achieved my goal. Now, honestly, I sometimes don't even know what to choose - they are so close in summary effect. Unless I have clear war preference, other options are difficult to decide for. What is better +1 energy each square or +2 INDUSTRY or +2 POLICE or +2 SUPPORT - tough to say. They've become kind of colorless for me.
I am thinking to revert my thin spreading a little. Allocate not 4 but 3 effects at most for each model, even future society ones. Make changes stronger instead to create a well recognized theme. Like Police State is mainly for POLICE, Democracy is for EFFICIENCY, Green is for PLANET, Planned is for INDUSTRY, Knowledge is for RESEARCH, etc. This way many people would be able to make a selection by SE model name. That is much easier than to weigh in each and every small change and chose between 3^4 possible selection combinations.
Post by: bvanevery on December 18, 2018, 04:12:39 AM
you gotta be @#$ kidding me |
I QUIT.
I'm not playing with this kind of garbage. That was my Maritime Control Center city with 5 Artifacts in it. I had forgotten about this sort of thing because I seem to have fixed it in my mod a long time ago. The main trick was getting rid of PROBE bonuses. It caused the AI to calm down about abusing with Probe Teams. I think it no longer seemed like the best deal since sliced bread to the AI, so it didn't make so many, or try so much to take things over. Another thing that's galling in this case, is between Fundamentalist and my faction bonus, I have a +2 PROBE rating. That city isn't out in the boonies, it's 9 squares away from my capitol. My cash reserve isn't that large, only 156, but it's not 0 either.
Just how rich do the Drones have to be to punk me this way? Scenario Editor says the Drones have 59 credits now. They have Democratic Simple Wealth, no PROBE advantage at all. Loading an autosave of the previous turn, they had 393 credits. So they spent ~320 credits to punk me, when I have half as much as a reserve, which is supposed to affect the outcome of these things. I have rage quit this game in disgust about this sort of thing, more times than I can remember. Much more than any other problem with the game.
It's not Tim's fault, it's just not something I think he's gotten around to thinking about or dealing with in his mod. But I am DONE with this and going back to my own modding now. I wanted to know what kind of threat a near neighbor such as Domai could present, and now I know. A completely intolerable one, because of overpowered Probe Teams. How was I to know? I figured he'd land a bunch of Speeders or something, like Cha Dawn did. This is completely ridiculous and broken.
My other major takeaway from this game, is my map generation modifications are seriously, seriously worth having. It can be completely pointless to play the game with a start as bad as I got. You can do it if you have something to prove, but I proved things like that over the years, over and over again a long time ago. I modded that garbage out of existence, and I'm sticking to that!
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 18, 2018, 02:36:41 PM
Post by: bvanevery on December 18, 2018, 03:39:51 PM
Code: [Select]
#SOCPROBE
-2, -50% cost of enemy probe team actions; enemy success rate increased
-1, -25% cost of enemy probe team actions; enemy success rate increased
0, Normal security measures
1, +1 probe team morale; +50% cost of enemy probe team actions
2, +2 probe team morale; Doubles cost of enemy probe team actions!
3, +3 probe team morale; Bases and units cannot be subverted by standard Probe Teams!!I had +2 PROBE. Enemy had no PROBE bonus of any kind, if that's even a factor. Enemy spent ~320 credits to buy my base. Assuming this table is correct and means something in the real world, the standard cost of buying my base was 160 credits. That's awfully damn cheap for a base that's in my core empire, near my capitol.
I don't know why the AI doesn't go after land bases as much in my mod. It almost obsesses about sea bases. You are guaranteed that a Foil Probe Team is going to cross oceans to bother you at some point. The sea base issue is highly annoying and makes me reticent to build sea bases at all. But at least sea bases are not typically critical infrastructure for a land based faction. If they become so later in the game, at least by then you've probably managed to produce defensive probe teams, or the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm.
In my mod, I removed PROBE bonuses from Fundamentalist, and otherwise only have them in Thought Control. I made Foil Probe Teams as a predefined unit. That's it. Somehow, these things changed the AI's behavior. In the stock game, when you're invading an enemy, typically the AI makes mountains upon mountains of probe teams to try to retake cities you've conquered. Now it doesn't. I don't know why.
I'm going to look up whatever this site has about how exactly base buying costs are determined. Maybe there's something else in my modding that affected this.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 18, 2018, 03:42:47 PM
Post by: bvanevery on December 18, 2018, 04:08:49 PM
Ok, here's what I've figured out:
-Distance seems to be calculated with the "direct" distances (edge to edge, that's actually diagonal) counting as 1, and the corner-to-corner boundaries counting as 1.5 (round down.) Perhaps the guys at Firaxis were D&D fans?
My distance is 9 squares, linked by road. As the crow flies, that could be 7 edge squares and 2 corner squares, or 1 edge square and 8 corner squares. That results in 10 or 9.5, respectively. As the road goes, it would be the latter. Let's just call it 10.
-For bases, the formula is (target faction's EC+1200)X(population+military units in the base+past mind controls+past unit subversions/4 rounded down)/(4+distance to HQ). The effective distance is halved by a children's creche, halved by a punishment sphere, halved by nerve stapling, and tripled by a genejack factory. Drone riots halve the final cost, and a golden age doubles it. Finally, the result is multiplied by 1 more than the number of bases captured (I presume this means via mind control) this turn.
Assuming he's right, (153+1200)*(3+1+0+0/4)/(4+10) = 1353*4/14 = 386 credits. I don't think that includes my +2 PROBE bonus either, which should bring it to 772 credits. Instead my opponent only paid ~320 credits and didn't have any PROBE bonuses of his own, whether those affect the calculation or not. Possibly my opponent made an additional ~60 credits during his turn popping pods, killing mindworms, or selling comm frequencies or something, and did pay ~380 credits to subvert me. Which would still mean I was ripped off.
I know for fact that when I try to buy enemy cities, when the faction goes Fundamentalist in the stock game, costs go way up. PROBE does and is supposed to have a major effect on cost. +0 PROBE is pretty inexpensive to buy, +2 PROBE you'd need to be seriously Daddy Warbucks to do it.
I can't say this formula works for me. Could you run a test? It is also worth noting here the military units must be offensive, i.e. garrison doesn't increase the price (which is why I always believed that units don't affect the cost).
I had a 1-2-1 garrison. If Yitzi is correct about the forumla, and Kirov is correct about offensive military units, the result is 1353*3/14 = 289 credits.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 18, 2018, 04:27:34 PM
Post by: bvanevery on December 18, 2018, 05:04:52 PM
Post by: Geo on December 18, 2018, 05:19:32 PM
Post by: bvanevery on December 18, 2018, 05:30:16 PM
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 18, 2018, 08:28:31 PM
Now I am thinking about obtaining 4 weapon when other factions didn't get 4 armor yet. This is a big problem of early game with 1,2,4 weapon progression. Each one doubling the rating. The 1,2,3 would be much easier to balance. Well, I guess nothing can be done about 4 as its value is tied to the picture. Here are some options I thought so far.
Make 4 armor a level 1 technology. Currently it is level 2 same as 4 weapon but it seems that weapon usually got discovered earlier so it is even possible to get 5 weapon against 2 armor.
Make weapon progression 1,3,4 - this is still possible without messing with pictures. Then make starting armor = 3. This way discovering first weapon brings attacker on par with defender. Even if attacker discovers 4 weapon and 5 weapon soon, the 4/3 and 5/3 ratios are much better than 4/2.
Post by: bvanevery on December 18, 2018, 09:34:05 PM
I just solved the weapon and armor problems by mostly locking them to the Tier of tech. My Particle Impactor comes at Tier 4 and that takes a long time to get to in my mod. My tree is extremely dense, every single tech has 2 prereqs. There really isn't any problem with someone getting a strength 4 weapon, because by then, lots of factions have got strength 3 armor, and some will soon have strength 4 armor.
I've pushed lots of non-weapon, non-armor technologies earlier in the tech tree. The sheer amount of tech spam in the tree, makes it harder to get higher level weapons and armor. It all take much longer. Another thing is until recently I had very little "channeling" of the research weights. Every Conquer tech was a "4" and there were lots of Conquer techs, far beyond just weapons and armor. So it takes a long time to randomly punch through all of them.
In the extreme case I've had games where Orbital Spaceflight was an "available" tech for like, forever, but I still didn't manage to obtain it. My Blind research can feel really blind because of the number of Conquer techs involved. I'm just reflecting the reality of what Firaxis actually gave us in the tree, instead of implementing their policy of handing out weapon and armor "candy" to "underprivileged" factions. I don't believe in that.
The way my tree has been working out recently, is many of the Tier 1 techs will be obtained quickly but you might miss 1 or 2. They're also not difficult to trade for, as I don't have any Secret Projects at Tier 1 or Tier 2 that would prevent an AI from trading. Information Networks is the tech most likely to be missed, as it is a pure Discover tech and only feeds Biogenetics. All the other techs are feeding a lot more things and many are cross-listed for research foci.
Tier 2 is a lot broader, and has various Pure focus techs, so you are likely to miss some of the Tier 2 techs. AI factions will trade them with you, but they may have missed something in their research as well, due to breadth. Someone may just not be available to provide what you're looking for in Tier 2.
At Tier 3, Secret Projects come online hardcore and you're not going to get didly squat out of AI factions until they're completed. I've not really seen the AI perform any of the "stupid moves" the way Roze and Aki-Zeta5 tend to do in the stock game, just giving away Secret Project bearing techs like Christmas presents. Doesn't happen. Must be some combo of Tier 3 + research weights put on things + almost nobody getting a starting tech. The point is, anything at Tier 3 is a pretty serious barrier to progress in my mod, you've gotta earn it. Even if a tech is not protected by a Secret Project, it's just difficult to climb your way up the tree by this point. Lotsa breadth to send you off in some other direction.
If you get to Tier 4, you've basically achieved something important that other factions probably don't have yet. Things like the Virtual World, Environmental Economics energy restriction lifted, supply crawlers, Genejack Factories, Cruisers, etc. come here. The idea is you've gotten your advantage that you were working up towards, and now you need to go hurt somebody with whatever you got. Or keep right on trucking with the world's best Builder faction or whatever. And you are only getting Particle Impactors at this stage.
I have Missile launchers on par with Fusion Power and nukes, they're all Tier 6.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 18, 2018, 11:09:36 PM
Your "everyone gets 2 armor" decision is interesting, and has important cost of production consequences. I still don't have a feel for what to do within that production and combat system. I only know that land units cost too much compared to sea units.
Why absolute armor value bothers you? Only relative weapon to armor ratio matters for odds. I set it to 2 so that single breakthrough in level 1 weapon technology doesn't give immediate 2:1 advantage. In early game with weak production and small number of bases one could wipe out a neighbor with a single rover. That is too devastating. Now I am facing the same problem with 4 weapon. It is a double jump from previous model.
Item rating has nothing to do with item cost. These are two separate numbers. I adjusted them both for different purposes. So the fact that 1-2-1 Scout Patrol costs 2 is mere coincidence. You'll see later that there is no exact match between unit strength and cost aside from my intent that stronger unit should generally cost more.
Sea units cost growths quadratically. So yes, early sea units are relatively cheap but later are catching up in cost. You cannot do anything about it. I can easily bump up early sea units and make them more expensive but then their later analogues will cost sun and moon. Not good either. See my cost calculation worksheet attached and play with numbers.
I just solved the weapon and armor problems by mostly locking them to the Tier of tech. My Particle Impactor comes at Tier 4 and that takes a long time to get to in my mod. My tree is extremely dense, every single tech has 2 prereqs. There really isn't any problem with someone getting a strength 4 weapon, because by then, lots of factions have got strength 3 armor, and some will soon have strength 4 armor.
I've pushed lots of non-weapon, non-armor technologies earlier in the tech tree. The sheer amount of tech spam in the tree, makes it harder to get higher level weapons and armor. It all take much longer. Another thing is until recently I had very little "channeling" of the research weights. Every Conquer tech was a "4" and there were lots of Conquer techs, far beyond just weapons and armor. So it takes a long time to randomly punch through all of them.
Again I don't understand why you bother with absolute timing. Only relative timing matters. Like 4 weapon should be next to 3,4,5 (or so) armors in the tree. It doesn't matter how exactly long it takes to discover it.
Post by: bvanevery on December 18, 2018, 11:15:20 PM
World Builder section: set Continent base=30, Continent modif.=60, Islands=0. Despite the enormous amount of work I did once upon a time to arrive at these values, the actual changes needed to make better land masses is pretty trivial, just these 3 settings. Feel free to use them if you decide you like them, without worrying about crediting me. The license on my mod is for taking "big" portions of my work, not a setting here or there.
Predefined units: added Skimship Foil Probe team, in the hope that it diverts AI attention from obsessive land probe team production. It may not. The seeming change in AI behavior may be about PROBE values in the Social Engineering table. But I think it is worth finding out one way or the other, so let's see if I get sucker punched by an overpowered probe team again.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 18, 2018, 11:19:10 PM
Decided I will test "1.1+" version of Tim's mod, by adding 2 changes of my own to deal with egregiousness per my "I QUIT!" post.
World Builder section: set Continent base=30, Continent modif.=60, Islands=0. Despite the enormous amount of work I did once upon a time to arrive at these values, the actual changes needed to make better land masses is pretty trivial, just these 3 settings. Feel free to use them if you decide you like them, without worrying about crediting me. The license on my mod is for taking "big" portions of my work, not a setting here or there.
Predefined units: added Skimship Foil Probe team, in the hope that it diverts AI attention from obsessive land probe team production. It may not. The seeming change in AI behavior may be about PROBE values in the Social Engineering table. But I think it is worth finding out one way or the other, so let's see if I get sucker punched by an overpowered probe team again.
Good suggestion about worldbuilder.
As for another predefined unit - can you send me the exact line from txt?
Post by: bvanevery on December 18, 2018, 11:26:18 PM
Item rating has nothing to do with item cost. These are two separate numbers. I adjusted them both for different purposes.
You have made land units cost substantially more than equivalent sea units. Cost of production is power, you've penalized being a land power. Land power is the bulk of the game for most factions, so this is tedious and annoying. I have problems producing much of anything to defend myself on land. I got my capitol wiped out last game by interloping units, that never happens. Your changes in cost have made it a lot easier for AI and indigenous life forms to randomly maraud an unprepared continent with no warning. Cost of production makes it rather difficult to have any defense ready, making this feel like griefing, not strategy.
On the other hand, possibly with better map generator settings, the marauding problem may not even arise.
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Sea units cost growths quadratically. So yes, early sea units are relatively cheap but later are catching up in cost.
Not interested in later because I start the game playing it now. Early game experience can be bad and off-putting compared to the rest of the game. To the extent that early game is the 1st thing anyone experiences when trying your mod, I suggest being careful and not cavalier about it. My jury is not completely decided on such matters, but I think something needs to be done about early game experience of land vs. sea unit costs, and weapon and armor progressions.
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I can easily bump up early sea units and make them more expensive but then their later analogues will cost sun and moon. Not good either.
Less of a problem than screwing the early game IMO. Later game can always have more factories and minerals. Also consider that early game phenomena have a disproportionate effect on AI growth.
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Again I don't understand why you bother with absolute timing. Only relative timing matters.
I am probably controlling a wildly variant tree with narrower timing window ranges than you are. Evidence so far: achieving 2x capable doom weapon in my 1st game. Jury is still out on extent of the problem.
Post by: bvanevery on December 18, 2018, 11:29:11 PM
As for another predefined unit - can you send me the exact line from txt?
Code: [Select]
Foil Probe Team, Foil, Probe Team, Scout, 11,0,0, PlaNets, -1, 00000000000000000000000000My Planetary Networks has Doctrine: Mobility and Doctrine: Flexibility as prereqs. There is no issue with someone reverse engineering the Speeder chassis or a Foil chassis from a probe team, because these are requirements anyways. I am adding this requirement to 1.1+ test as well.
In my test I will deliberately refuse to take "special or extraordinary" precautions about probe team incursions. The usual drill in my own mod, is I do hit a point at which I start building defensive probe team units, on my own infantry chassis with armor. However that's generally contingent on production demands, and military defense always comes before probe defense for me. If I do not actually ever have enough production before I'm assaulted by overpowered probe teams, then the root cause AFAIAC is too expensive production costs in general. We shall see. I'm not anti probe defense, but I shouldn't have to perform it as some immediate and high stress ritual to have a chance of surviving the game.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 18, 2018, 11:37:16 PM
You have made land units cost substantially more than equivalent sea units. Cost of production is power, you've penalized being a land power. Land power is the bulk of the game for most factions, so this is tedious and annoying. I have problems producing much of anything to defend myself on land. I got my capitol wiped out last game by interloping units, that never happens. Your changes in cost have made it a lot easier for AI and indigenous life forms to randomly maraud an unprepared continent with no warning. Cost of production makes it rather difficult to have any defense ready, making this feel like griefing, not strategy.
Scout units in boxed game are extremely cheap. That's true. I brought them a little bit closer to speeder units. I can revert this back if you feel this is better.
QuoteSea units cost growths quadratically. So yes, early sea units are relatively cheap but later are catching up in cost.
Not interested in later because I start the game playing it now. Early game experience can be bad and off-putting compared to the rest of the game. To the extent that early game is the 1st thing anyone experiences when trying your mod, I suggest being careful and not cavalier about it. My jury is not completely decided on such matters, but I think something needs to be done about early game experience of land vs. sea unit costs, and weapon and armor progressions.QuoteI can easily bump up early sea units and make them more expensive but then their later analogues will cost sun and moon. Not good either.
Less of a problem than screwing the early game IMO. Later game can always have more factories and minerals. Also consider that early game phenomena have a disproportionate effect on AI growth.
NP. I'll decrease cost of infantry units to what they were in boxed game. My speeders, though, are about the same as in original. Let's see if it makes sense.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 19, 2018, 02:28:47 AM
Post by: bvanevery on December 19, 2018, 02:53:15 AM
Beginning test with those changes. Huge map, 30%..50% land mass as per recommendation in my own mod. Transcend, random factions. I draw Zhakarov. Good test of Probe Team aggressiveness as he has -2 PROBE, unlike my own mod where he has no PROBE penalty at all anymore. If I get punked I'm not going to be shocked.
I keep pure Discover focus to understand progressions as an AI player would see them.
I have rushed both my 1st Scout and my 1st Former.
Cavalier attitude towards expense of Scout production almost causes me to lose my 2nd base. I build a Former instead of a Scout because I've got a cloned Scout coming. Former completes just as a mindworm larva shows up from nowhere. I'm safe but I could have lost the base. It shows that even on a Huge map, you can't assume you won't have neighbors.
Learned Industrial Base, now a Conquer tech. Strength 4 Synthmetal Armor implies that armor progressions in this game are going to be unusual.
MY 2121. I rush my 1st Transport. I only have my 2 original cities.
MY 2123. I fish a Battle Ogre Mk 1. Since this mod only does Fission reactors, it makes me wonder what happens if I get a Mk 2 or Mk 3.
MY 2127. I rush my 1st produced Colony Pod. Capitol begins Recycling Tank since I've got a lot of food and an Ogre to police it to size 3.
MY 2131. I kill an obstructing Spore Launcher with a Scout, indicating that 5:4 Psi attack odds probably ends difficulty dealing with them. Although it was a Disciplined unit.
MY 2132. Green Independent Scout attacks Green Hatchling larva next to my 2nd city, and dies. 5:4 does not guarantee success on attack. I will not save scum and just accept the damage for testing purposes. Also it is only 1 larva attacking and I know its 2nd partner has to be around somewhere. If it comes before I can react, this could kill my 2nd city. This is big trouble no matter what anyways, because mindworm walk-in will likely kill my Colony Pod production, wipe out Network Node, and depopulate city. Even if it doesn't, drones are about to riot, size is 2, food is from 2 forests so any change will knock me to size 1. In essence, this mindworm has destroyed 1 of my early cities at a minimum, and 2 at a maximum.
MY 2133. It destroyed Colony Pod production but not Network Node. Size 1. Switching to Scout and using Former as garrison for 6 turns it's going to take.
MY 2134. Rushing Scout production in new 3rd city, having grown afraid of mindworm dangers. Didn't get to put this city near appropriate resources, because unpopped supply pod was sitting on my preferred city site. Lack of ability to quickly produce cheap Scouts, doubles amount of time it takes to clear pods. This will affect both human and AI opening game.
MY 2137. Rush Scout, rush Recycling Tank, gaining 2 turns of production time.
MY 2138. Supply pod completes a Recycling Tank I just started, in the city that got whacked earlier.
MY 2139. Designed bizarrely expensive 0-4-1 Rover Transport, hoping to repeat the insta-completion dynamic and get both a Speeder and Synthmetal Armor prototype accomplished. Completion gambit works! Learned Police State. Can't switch to it yet, don't have enough credits.
MY 2141. Money from sea pod allows switch to Police State. Rush cheapened Scout.
My 2142. Disband expensive Rover Transport in capitol to rush Recreation Commons. Got that much food.
Post by: bvanevery on December 19, 2018, 04:01:04 AM
attack is suicide |
History repeats itself. 5:4 Psi odds are not enough to attack and kill hatchling mindworms or spore launchers with Green units. This time however, I had 2 units ready for the encounter. 1 garrisoned, 1 brought in from University Base. Having to trade 1 for 1 is not acceptable cost of production. It is also a big penalty to have to do this with an armored Scout that costs 20, rather than an unarmored Scout that costs 10. Conventional armor does no good in Psi combat.
I can defend if there's only 1 mindworm. 2 mindworms attacking is a common scenario, getting off an Isle together, and that will kill a city.
My paranoia about building a Command Center is fully justified. I wonder how the AI will do in the face of these threats? Graph says Peacekeepers and Drones are doing slightly better than I. Pirates and Morganites about the same. Data Angels and Spartans slightly worse. I haven't met anyone yet. I seem to be on a modestly sized east-west island. I am circumnavigating it with a regular Transport that's been fishing supply pods, and a slow independent Transport that is merely scouting.
Noticing that burden of armor cost, is achieving one of Tim's objectives. Can't clean the map of supply pods easily. At least, not on land. Not really affected at sea.
MY 2146. Rushed Command Center to completion. Beginning spew of trained Scouts, because they are still cheapest thing I can make. Rushing Recycling Tank. Badly wounded Isle to the east, indicating a near neighbor. That's another one of the the risks, other people's mindworm garbage washing up on my shore. Feeling really wise about the Command Center.
MY 2147. Expected badly wounded Isle to move towards my cities, not away from them. Consequently, am now ending my turn next to the Isle. Gives me a clue about what direction another faction is in, but will wound my slow Transport. Fortunately only 10% damage.
MY 2149. Free Market becomes available. Could handle its -2 POLICE since I've got +2 POLICE from Police State, and enough happiness in my capitol to keep things together. But -2 MORALE is unpleasant idea after investing in Command Center. -3 PLANET is also bad from a getting attacked standpoint. Only upside is +2 ECONOMY, which would change research speed from 13 turns to 8. I think I have to pass and just grow my empire for now though. I still only have 3 cities. Capitol will go vertical, everything else will become the horizontal.
MY 2154. East-west island is official, bounded by a small New Sargasso to the east. Still no contact with other factions, but I haven't had the production to make any search ships. 4 cities now, all have Recycling Tanks. Starting Energy Bank in capitol.
MY 2161. Energy Bank completed. Building Children's Creche as growth has slowed. Peacekeepers about to complete the Weather Paradigm.
Post by: bvanevery on December 19, 2018, 04:49:40 AM
MY 2168. I learned Planned, which comes by way of Information Networks. Weird that it takes me this long, as the University, to learn Information Networks. I don't need Network Nodes but it makes me wonder what the pure Discover path really is. Planned would give me a net -2 EFFIC. Doesn't look like it will bother me much in my paltry about-to-be-6-city "empire". I also don't have a lot more scope for land expansion due to fungal blooms getting in my way. So I do it.
MY 2169. I produce my 1st 0-4-4 Skimship Probe Team. The heavier armor doesn't cost me any more. Beginning with Children's Creches to counteract inefficiency of Planned. I complete a Laser Squad prototype. This looks like my new version of a Scout as it costs the same. If Yitzi's claims about mind control formulas are correct, this is also a bare minimum "offensive" unit that will help make cities more expensive to take over. So crank them I shall.
MY 2173. My capitol has run out of strictly necessary things to build, given my growth rate. The Merchant Exchange is massively cheaper than the other available Secret Projects, and I have +3 INDUSTRY. I have accumulated 6 Artifacts. Both the Spartans and the Drones are working on it, so I rush it to completion, spending but 2 Artifacts and 120 cash to do so. I could likely bang out another Secret Project quickly as well.
MY 2174. I start the Human Genome Project.
MY 2179. I've got enough to rush either the Human Genome Project or the Command Nexus, but I'll see if I can take fewer Artifacts to do it by waiting. I don't actually need either facility right now.
MY 2180. I see a road on a continent east of me.
MY 2183. I meet Lal and Domai. I sign Treaties with both, but they have no techs. Lal completes the Command Nexus. Everyone is working on the Human Genome Project. It's about time to rush it. I cash 3 Artifacts to do so, leaving me with 2.
MY 2184. I meet Santiago. We sign a Treaty. I thought she has no tech, but then I infiltrate her and see she's got Nonlinear Mathematics. I guess she didn't want to trade it and I spaced it out.
It's time to start making defensive Probe Teams, nothing better to do. Switching to Democratic as I really need my cities to grow. With the Human Genome Project I shouldn't be too bad off with happiness. I find my cities surprisingly miserable and have to do a 30-40-30 budget. Then I realize, I've never built Recreation Commons. Probably should have done that before making the transition, oh well.
MY 2186. On the rebound, Santiago signs a Pact, but still won't trade her tech to me. I see a Monolith on an island north of her. She's also sitting next to the Monsoon Jungle, but it's on another land mass.
Post by: bvanevery on December 19, 2018, 05:58:28 AM
those dolts |
MY 2192. Something is sick and wrong in the Discover dept., when I, as a pure Discover faction with the +2 RESEARCH advantage, get beaten to Secrets of the Human Brain by a -2 RESEARCH faction.
MY 2193. Belatedly I realize that Santiago has Morgan's comm frequency. I get it from her, then sign a Treaty with him. He's grumpy about my Planned economy but doesn't mind selling me Nonlinear Mathematics for 100 credits.
MY 2194. I get Svensgaard's frequency from Lal. Just realized Information Networks is a D3 tech. That explains why it took me so long to get.
manufactured outrage |
I've got a bug! Svensgaard thinks I've committed an atrocity against him, but we've never met before. I seriously doubt someone could have framed me. I wonder what's causing this behavior?
MY 2196. I get Santiago to go to war with Svensgaard. They're close enough that they might actually fight a little. Santiago is Quarrelsome so I don't expect our Pact to last very long.
MY 2198. Svensgaard couldn't do a thing about one of my 0-4-4 Foil Probe Teams. He summarily died on my hull without scratching me. I didn't see what kind of ship it was, but suspect it only had a Gun.
MY 2201. I've completely encased my 6 cities in defensive probe teams with strength 4 armor. Working on a Particle Impactor prototype. Svensgaard suicided a bunch of weak Gun ships against my armored probe teams and the Slow Transport. Looks like he may have been probing the Sargasso Sea. I didn't get to it, too busy fishing supply pods that were more safely in open water. I've infiltrated Svensgaard. He has Superconductor and Synthetic Fossil Fuels to steal.
MY 2202. Svensgaard finds an answer to my armor: an Isle of the Deep. I guess he went Green. Hm, no he didn't. How did he get one of those? It would be unusual to have the Pirates make a land base next to the Manifold Nexus. I have trouble believing he's researched Centauri Meditation already. In fact I don't need to believe anything about that. I've infiltrated him, and he hasn't.
Oh wait, now I remember. In this mod, Fundamentalist also gives +1 PLANET. He must have been Fundamentalist at some point, but isn't now. Likes Police State better. Well good, that means he won't have any more of these things once he wears them out.
I infiltrate the Morganites. He knows the Data Angels' comm frequency. I try to pester him for it, but he won't speak to me.
I've got the tech for the Planetary Energy Grid. It's expensive though.
Post by: bvanevery on December 19, 2018, 06:56:27 AM
MY 2209. A Pirate Gatling Foil attacks my Elite 0-4-4 Probe Team and almost kills it. So, a naval war seems to be what we need to do now. I've stolen Missiles from him but haven't prototyped them yet. 10 turns. The Planetary Energy Grid is not feasible even in my capitol, as it would take 71 turns.
MY 2212. I learn Polymorphic Software, which gives both Heavy Artillery and the Virtual World. That, I will make an effort to build. Seems like a weird pairing though, having this in a Conquer tech. Also it provides Knowledge. I switch to it and take the penalties. A net -1 ECONOMY isn't so bad, but my PROBE is now -6. Well, seems -2 is the cutoff. 1/2 cost for enemy probe team actions.
MY 2215. Domai completes the Empath Guild and holds an election. Lal bribes me to become the Governor. Roze is quarrelsome with me but signs a Treaty. I'm Democratic, don't know what her beef is. Lal loves me and signs a Pact. Seems I've now stolen what there is to steal from Svensgaard.
2:30 AM, gonna stop for the night. I don't think Democratic Planned is giving me much GROWTH for having made these choices. Only +2 and I feel runty. That mindworm hit at the beginning did do my empire some substantial early game damage.
Tech-wise I am fine, but the Discover part of the tree feels unwieldy and haphazard. I don't see why the Drones should be doing better at tech than myself. Admittedly, the degree to which the AI cheats on Transcend is egregious. In my mod I had to give Zhakarov a free Biology Lab in addition to his Network Nodes to make him competitive. +2 RESEARCH really doesn't count for all that much in the face of the AI tech bonuses.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 19, 2018, 02:27:25 PM
I am examining 1.2 alphax.txt using WinMerge. I see map generator changes incorporated, good. Foil Probe Team is present but you forgot to increase #UNITS count to 24.
Here you go.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 19, 2018, 02:39:02 PM
I would also suggest adding Doctrine: Mobility as a prereq for Planetary Networks while you're at it.
I agree that it is a good thing to do but I am using a little bit relaxed tech tree linking. Each of my techs has one prerequisite from previous level and one from the level below it. Makes higher levels slightly more easy to achieve and promotes wider variability suitable for trade/steal/SP. Due to this setup my level 2 techs have only one prerequisite from level 1. If I want Planetary Networks to have two I need to move it to level 3. This is not that bad but maybe kind of late for probes.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 19, 2018, 03:26:32 PM
Cavalier attitude towards expense of Scout production almost causes me to lose my 2nd base.
There is no way to move autocalculated Scout Patrol cost back to 1 unless some other unit values get screwed up as in original game. Notably two: 1) same weapon pure attacker infantry is more than twice cheaper than speeder, 2) Adding even level 2 armor on pure attacker immediately doubles its cost.
If you think this is reasonable, I can revert it back.
Another problem with Scout Patrol costs 1 is that its trance and police modifications also cost 1. That is not right. Trance patrol 100% negates native warfare from other faction. Six time cheaper defender is too cheap. Same consideration about double police unit. It is super beneficial as it quells more drones otherwise not achievable by current police rating and it also saves on support. So it should cost about twice as more as base one or at least 50% more. I can fix it by pricing these abilities at 4 something. Will see if it works.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 19, 2018, 03:43:17 PM
We need to have them so that the attack is slightly encouraged in a field yet there is still a chance to survive the attack especially with higher morale. At the same time they should be able to at least sometimes kill units in unprotected city.
The 5:4 odds seem to achieve this. It gives attacker in field 80% success chance, down to 70% against hardened, down to 50% against veteran. At the same time it gives 50% success chance against disciplined in base, down to 30% against hardened, down to 20% against veteran. So it seems quite balanced with great influence from morale level. Which is what I designed.
The only problem is that full combination of defense bonuses (base + sensor + trance) makes it completely non-penetrable. I am thinking to reducing trance bonus to 25% since I've reduced worms attack bonus.
Post by: bvanevery on December 19, 2018, 04:39:47 PM
If I want Planetary Networks to have two I need to move it to level 3.
Or you could just make an exception for this 1 case. As the French say, "The Exception that proves the Rule."
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 19, 2018, 04:45:31 PM
If I want Planetary Networks to have two I need to move it to level 3.
Or you could just make an exception for this 1 case. As the French say, "The Exception that proves the Rule."
Meh. Linking the tree is already a pretty hard work. I've standardize it to at least give technology level some sense. They are all exactly proportional now. I.e. level 8 is about twice as far in the game as level 4, etc.
I think I'll move it to level 3. It is not that critical technology anyway.
Post by: bvanevery on December 19, 2018, 04:59:42 PM
1) same weapon pure attacker infantry is more than twice cheaper than speeder,
Speed is an advantage. I'm not understanding the problem here.
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2) Adding even level 2 armor on pure attacker immediately doubles its cost.
Armor is an advantage so...?
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Another problem with Scout Patrol costs 1 is that its trance and police modifications also cost 1. That is not right. Trance patrol 100% negates native warfare from other faction. Six time cheaper defender is too cheap.
But a Trance Scout is only good at defending against native life forms, nothing else. It's not like it makes you safe from a faction invasion.
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Same consideration about double police unit. It is super beneficial as it quells more drones otherwise not achievable by current police rating and it also saves on support.
It also only works if your POLICE rating is -1 or higher.
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So it should cost about twice as more as base one or at least 50% more.
I think we have a fundamental difference of view as game designers, in that you seem very intent on preventing players from ever gaining an advantage. You keep arranging things so that advantages zero out. Whereas, I see doing the work of going up the tech tree, then gaining an advantage from having done that work, as the basic point of the game. I want players to gain advantages and then end the game by using them. I don't want the player to proceed forever, treading water, with advantages zeroed out.
The conflict you set up between ECONOMY and EFFICiency is a notable example of this. You give money with one thing, you take it away with the other, what's the point? I don't basically understand the game design proposition, "money buys you inefficiency". Nor "efficency makes you poor".
You can argue about any specific concern, and you might even be right in some instance, for some choice of proportionate setting somewhere. But if you keep doing this as a general tendency, the strategic result is you are demanding that the player wait for things and for the game to take longer. It's already a long game. How does making the game take even longer to play, increase the quality or enjoyment of anyone's life? It could be providing entertainment value if there's an interesting tradeoff to make about stuff. But zeroed out tradeoffs are often not interesting. "Hey, here's a new beat in the tech tree! Guess what, it's not worth anything, it's been zeroed out." You might as well have not bothered to provide the capability to begin with, when it becomes a new way of setting things to zero yet again.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 19, 2018, 05:06:23 PM
QuoteAnother problem with Scout Patrol costs 1 is that its trance and police modifications also cost 1. That is not right. Trance patrol 100% negates native warfare from other faction. Six time cheaper defender is too cheap.
I meant specifically faction invasion with native warfare. Using natives for assault is an option and extremely cheap protection against it eliminates it as an option. Now you don't have choice and tactical maneuver ability.
Post by: bvanevery on December 19, 2018, 05:12:34 PM
Meh. Linking the tree is already a pretty hard work.
So you finally noticed that. :D Back when you asked whether you could borrow my tech tree, and I told you my licensing, and you asked whether the tech tree was a "substantial" piece of work, I was like, boy he's gonna find out someday!
:1st: :hunter: I swear that in designing a new game, being able to rapidly edit whatever my approach to technology is, is going to be like the 1st thing I work on. It has consumed months of my time.
Quote
I think I'll move it to level 3. It is not that critical technology anyway.
It'll probably work. My Probe Teams can come pretty late because of the sheer quantity of early techs I have in my tree, and the categorical obstructions.
Post by: bvanevery on December 19, 2018, 05:17:27 PM
I meant specifically faction invasion with native warfare.
The AI doesn't know how to prevent you from invading with natives. The AI doesn't know how to invade you with natives. In a single player game, where's the problem? I don't care about multiplayer games. Multiplayer can bite me, this game is way too long to bother worrying about multiplayer game design.
Well unless Induktio's Thinker Mod has seriously changed the status quo of AI combat prowess. In the stock binary, the AI needs all the help it can get. Trance Scouts and Trance 3-Res Sentinels considered good predesigned units. I'll be trashing the AI with my mindworms and a +4 PLANET rating, then I'll run into one of those and actually have to start thinking for a change.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 19, 2018, 05:25:51 PM
I think we have a fundamental difference of view as game designers, in that you seem very intent on preventing players from ever gaining an advantage. You keep arranging things so that advantages zero out. Whereas, I see doing the work of going up the tech tree, then gaining an advantage from having done that work, as the basic point of the game. I want players to gain advantages and then end the game by using them. I don't want the player to proceed forever, treading water, with advantages zeroed out.
The conflict you set up between ECONOMY and EFFICiency is a notable example of this. You give money with one thing, you take it away with the other, what's the point? I don't basically understand the game design proposition, "money buys you inefficiency". Nor "efficency makes you poor".
You can argue about any specific concern, and you might even be right in some instance, for some choice of proportionate setting somewhere. But if you keep doing this as a general tendency, the strategic result is you are demanding that the player wait for things and for the game to take longer. It's already a long game. How does making the game take even longer to play, increase the quality or enjoyment of anyone's life? It could be providing entertainment value if there's an interesting tradeoff to make about stuff. But zeroed out tradeoffs are often not interesting. "Hey, here's a new beat in the tech tree! Guess what, it's not worth anything, it's been zeroed out." You might as well have not bothered to provide the capability to begin with, when it becomes a new way of setting things to zero yet again.
You are right that I might be too tight on balancing things. Generally I am trying to tell myself to let go unless I perceive it as game breaker. As you see I tend to agree with most of the changes you propose. Mostly because I don't care about minor things.
Some other things I feel important, though. Take SE for example. In my box games I found myself sticking to Democratic + Free Market + Wealth all the time from the middle onward. Maybe occasionally turning off FM during the invasion. This killer combination in term of money and research is unbeatable. I found myself never using Police State, Fundamentalist, Power. Which kinda make me think that if they would be not so lame I would use them just out of curiosity even. But they are exceptionally lame. That's why I rearranged SE choices to give them a chance. The ECONOMY vs. EFFICIENCY opposition you observe is not a nullification but a choice. Early on EFFICIENCY has almost no effect but later on it does! So the value of SE choices changes over time - my exact intention.
This is just an example of many things I looked at. No need to argue about it. I'll have a look at your SE config and may copy some ideas here and there.
You understand my intention wrong. Let me reiterate it once more. I do not in any way want it to make longer. That would be stupid idea in general.
:)
What I want is to make sure that any single feature of the game is usable in one way/time or another. I do not want to see completely useless things there. That is why I removed bunch of stuff from my version that is useless beyond repair (some empty technologies, inherently useless abilities, etc.).
I will accept all changes as long as they don't push some features out of tactical instrumentality.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 19, 2018, 05:34:17 PM
The AI doesn't know how to prevent you from invading with natives. The AI doesn't know how to invade you with natives. In a single player game, where's the problem? I don't care about multiplayer games. Multiplayer can bite me, this game is way too long to bother worrying about multiplayer game design.
Well unless Induktio's Thinker Mod has seriously changed the status quo of AI combat prowess. In the stock binary, the AI needs all the help it can get. Trance Scouts and Trance 3-Res Sentinels considered good predesigned units. I'll be trashing the AI with my mindworms and a +4 PLANET rating, then I'll run into one of those and actually have to start thinking for a change.
Wow. Are you sure about this 100%?
O_o
I think I've seen AI sending worms to me as well as building trance unit in response to my worm waves.
If you are right then native warfare config should be rethought a little.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 19, 2018, 05:59:42 PM
Actually, upon thinking of it, I realized that if anything I do with the game is making it in fact shorter. My idea is to remove any drag, waiting or grinding from it. That's why I shorten the tree and moved all the feature to the place where they needed the most thus eliminating any unneeded clutter and given player what they need when they need it. So if anything I make it more dynamic and plan to keep this way.
Post by: bvanevery on December 19, 2018, 07:42:23 PM
I think I've seen AI sending worms to me
Sending a worm at you isn't a credible threat. You attack it, you kill it, it's over. The AI's skill at mindworm offense is completely laughable. You don't need any Trance defense against an AI faction, it's a complete non-issue.
Know who's actually good at mindworm offense? Planet. It sends hordes of mindworms at you. During global warming floods and such, triggered by industry, nukes, or too many chemical weapons. They will kill you. I've got AARs of them killing me. That's when a cheap Trance Scout is really really helpful. Although frankly, I only delayed the inevitable that way. See my writeups. I should do an AAR where I actually prevail in the face of this kind of onslaught. Sometime when I don't have any real content to provide for my mod, and I want to get more attention on Reddit. I think you probably have to get to Fusion Power, Genejack Factories, and various Secret Projects in place before you have a hope of surviving this. You definitely cannot survive it given the paltry production resources of the early game, they will win. I mean, yeah, I survived the mindworms, only to be nuked by the factions that I pissed off in the 1st place with the chemical attacks that triggered the mindworms.
Quote
as well as building trance unit in response to my worm waves.
My testing over all the iterations of my mod is, if you give the AI the opportunity to obsess about 3-Res armor, it will. Every. Single. Freakin'. Unit. And it doesn't hold up to PLANET friendly mindworm offense. 3-Res is not that tough. I'm glad you got rid of it in your mod, as it just wastes the AI's production resources. In my mod, in 1.26 I positioned it later, so that the AI has better things to do than obsess about it.
Trance units create actual impediment to me stomping the AI with my mindworms. It's uncomfortable losing a Demon Boil to a Scout that only cost 10 to make. In my mod, the AI doesn't produce nearly enough of such units to hold me off though.
I did make Trance ability cost 1, it's not a free lunch. I didn't think anyone should have magical immunity to mindworm attacks, same as you thought there should actually be choice to make such attacks. Problem is, my pendulum has probably swung too far the other way. Human player mindworm offense is too easy right now. In fact compared to all the other weapons and armor nerfing I've done, I could be accused of having made it into the only productive conquest path of the early game.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 19, 2018, 08:58:36 PM
I'll probably keep it at 5:4 for now.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 19, 2018, 09:19:14 PM
trance = +25%
song = +25%
jammer = +25%
tracking = +50%
Example
Needleject attacks unit in base with no Airspace Complex but with tracking and sensor.
1) Box game. Weapon to armor ratio = 2/1. Odds = 2:(1*1.25*1.25*2) = 0.64. Pretty small odds but they don't make defender absolutely invulnerable. Two needlejets for one defender trade-off.
2) RT mod unmodified abilities. Weapon to armor ratio = 1/1. Odds = 1:(1*1.25*1.25*2) = 0.32. That makes defender completely invulnerable. Attacker loses 4 Needlejects per defender. Too much.
3) RT mod decreased abilities. Odds = 1:(1*1.25*1.25*1.5) = 0.42. Still low: 3 attacker per defender casualties. Makes more sense than #2 though.
Post by: bvanevery on December 19, 2018, 09:20:48 PM
That's why I shorten the tree
I can't tell yet because I haven't completed a game. Also, my testing is on a Huge map. I don't believe the AI is capable of putting up a fight on a smaller sized map, with the stock .exe.
Post by: bvanevery on December 19, 2018, 09:23:46 PM
I will decrease most of the multiplication abilities
Could work. Not crazy talk. I guess only downside is AI not really understanding that the abilities are worth half as much as they used to be, but still cost the same. Human player understands just fine and can make the choice.
Post by: bvanevery on December 20, 2018, 05:27:17 AM
MY 2219. The Data Angels have started on the Virtual World right after me. I only began it in a minor city, thinking I had an advantage getting the tech earlier than others. I am moving my 4 Artifacts into position to rush it when I'm ready. I discovered a 5th Artifact out on the water this turn, but it will take awhile to bring home. A Foil Probe team is nearing the Angels' home waters for infiltration.
MY 2220. I research Industrial Automation on my own, potentially changing how I complete Secret Projects. However Supply Crawlers cost 80 in this game, so it has to be a city I'm committed to some more expensive production in. I'm at size 7 in some cities and need some Hab Complexes, so I'm glad I got this. I make my 1st Spore Launcher to go deal with another one that's shelling my shore. I've completed a Missile prototype so I'll make Missile Artillery if this doesn't hold up all that well.
MY 2221. Seething at me, the Spartans end our Pact. Not like I care, but their anger gets my Artifact a free ride home!
MY 2222. I infiltrate Roze. She signs a Pact with me and sells me High Energy Chemistry for 100 credits. It gives strength 6 Plasma armor. My Spore Launcher got summarily killed by the one on the Isle, it couldn't hang.
MY 2224. I complete the last of my Hologram Theaters in my capitol, enabling me to switch my budget to 40-20-40.
MY 2228. I research Doctrine: Initiative, so, more SPs to build. Not really any war happening with the Pirates. This is turning into a classic "build Supply Crawlers on an island to bang out SPs" game.
MY 2229. Morgan, tiring of my Planned economy, declares war on me. But he's far away, he can't do a thing to me. I could get Roze to bother him as they share a border, but I won't. He might be slightly stronger than Roze right now, and if she wants war at some point, she'll get around to it. Meanwhile the Spore Launcher sits at sea, and the Isle it was on seems to be gone. Hopefully next turn it sinks.
MY 2230. My ally Lal begins the Maritime Control Center. I'm behind Roze on the Virtual World as is. I'm going to need those Supply Crawlers I'm building.
MY 2231. I begin the Planetary Energy Grid, expensive as it is, because it's more valuable. It's in a low production city, but Perimeter Defense and Hab Complex have been completed there. In my capitol I begin a Plasma Garrison prototype.
MY 2234. Morgan shows up on my west coast with a ship to bother me. Of course with the long prototyping time and only 1 Command Center, I do not feel like or have any artillery to meet him. Maybe I could buy him with a Foil Probe Team, but I'm too lazy to bother. I'll just keep rebuilding stuff until I can get artillery ready. Not like I didn't just go through this drill in exactly the same place.
MY 2235. Lal begins the Planetary Energy Grid.
MY 2237. I research Ecological Engineering, which makes the Manifold Harmonics available. It only costs me 240 to produce, definitely far too cheap, and possibly quite overpowered this early in the game. But I've never been able to build it this early in a game before, so the experiment is definitely worth trying. It would force me to become a tree hugger, which isn't so hard. All I have to do is switch to Green to get +2 PLANET. However that will also give me a -2 INDUSTRY penalty, which would interfere with winning these important Secret Project races. So I will build it, but not just yet.
I switch the Planetary Energy Grid production to the Manifold Harmonics. That city is low production and the Grid will only get done with Supply Crawlers anyways. It can be built in a more centrally located city.
MY 2238. For unknown reasons, the Morganite ship leaves.
MY 2241. I complete the Virtual World and sell off my Hologram Theaters. Lal begins the Manifold Harmonics, requiring me to divert crawlers to its completion. Morgan sinks a Sea Former that wasn't doing anything important, just planting seed kelp to the north of my lands. Morgan's ship is half wounded now, so maybe it will slink away in shame.
MY 2243. The Pirates sink another useless Sea Former that I was trying to sneak across the Sargasso Sea. I had a Transport going that way as well, trying to get to pods. It will reverse course. Domai bothers me. I ask him to knock off his war with Lal and he does so. He's allied with Morgan, but Lal is in between us. He's at war with the Pirates so at least we agree on something.
Every time I try to go into the fungus north of this one city, I get a mindworm. It's getting annoying. I keep diverting Formers to places on my island I don't really need to be working. I guess I do have Ecological Engineering now and should make a Condenser somewhere, if it's useful. Despite more expensive Forests in this mod, I have lots of it by now. Hey, trees grow on trees.
MY 2244. I complete the Manifold Harmonics. I'm still working on the Planetary Energy Grid so will not go Green. The Pirates sink the Transport that wasn't doing me any good. I guess I need artillery any day now, as those ships will eventually move past the uninhabited portion of my island next to the Sargasso Sea. My capitol is finishing a Perimeter Defense to prevent surprises.
Post by: bvanevery on December 20, 2018, 06:50:16 AM
MY 2246. I buy Intellectual Integrity from Roze for 100 credits. It makes Power available, whose -2 INDUSTRY penalty I definitely don't want.
MY 2248. Lal begins the Xenoempathy Dome, again causing me to worry. I switch my Grid production to Dome production to head him off, because it's a lot cheaper and the Nexus is already pushing me towards a future Green strategy. Grid is now beginning completely from scratch, grr.
MY 2250. I complete the Xenoempathy Dome. I'm realizing that I don't need to get rid of these various fungal blooms now. I just need to complete my SPs and go Green. Lal only needs 14 turns to complete the Grid. This is uncomfortable.
MY 2252. Sunspots set in. I have to be careful not to lose track of Lal's progress. I finally get some Missile Artillery together. I'm gonna go shell this stupid Pirate Transport that's been wandering offshore for years.
MY 2253. I learn Fusion Power. No fusion reactor but it makes Fusion Labs available. It also makes Carrier Deck available, which I find completely nonsensical. The Pirates have built a land base on the northeast end of my island! Now they're going to see how Xenoempathy works.
MY 2254. 6 turns until Lal completes the Grid. He may have me beat.
MY 2256. I've had a Foil Probe Team exploring Morgan's backwater since forever. Completing that job, he finally has a tech to steal. I take Eudaimonia. Not useful, just ECONOMY and a lot of penalties. Makes me feel sorry for Domai, I should give it to him just to hurt him.
MY 2257. 2 turns until Lal's Grid. I don't think I can bring any more Supply Crawlers before then. I think I've got this if I cash all my Artifacts. I save my game just in case I've done the math wrong. Yep, I've got it!
MY 2258. I complete the Planetary Energy Grid. Lal will of course completely overkill the Maritime Control Center next turn. I'm going to build my Fusion Labs then go Green.
Post by: bvanevery on December 20, 2018, 07:45:39 AM
MY 2267. I buy Gene Splicing from Lal for a mere 150 credits. It makes Research Hospital available.
MY 2272. The Pirates have sent 4 empty Transports to my northern shore. It's been awhile since I've experienced Pirate spam, since my own mod plays differently. I will gradually shell them. I still don't want to go Green because Planned is useful for growth and completing my stuff. I still haven't even filled out my island yet, this has been a vertical game with a lot of interruptions.
MY 2279. I research Environmental Economics, which will be useful for all these trees I've got on my island. The energy restriction was removed some time at the beginning of the game though. I've got almost 1700 cash so I start spending it.
MY 2284. Roze blows off our Pact.
MY 2286. Lal asks me to support his war with the Drones. Since the Drones are Seething towards me, I acquiesce. Domai has got a couple of techs to steal, so I could try to get a land based probe team over there. If I can overcome the meh.
The Spartans intervene and declare war on me. They immediately try to make a probe team attack on a northeast base, but I garrisoned everything with armored infantry Probe Teams eons ago. They retreat helplessly. I move forwards with 2 units and blow it away.
I research Superstring Theory. I have been wondering why Lal was out researching me and now I know why, it gives Cybernetic. I switch to it, not liking the additional ECONOMY penalty. I'm now at -1 energy per base, but at least I've got lots of money. My RESEARCH is now at an excessive +6.
3:30 AM, got somewhere to be tomorrow morning, going to bed.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 20, 2018, 02:12:30 PM
MY 2237. I research Ecological Engineering, which makes the Manifold Harmonics available. It only costs me 240 to produce, definitely far too cheap, and possibly quite overpowered this early in the game.
I don't feel it is overpowered. You need non-negative PLANET rating to activate it first. Then with +2 PLANET it gives +1 everything from monolith. Nice bonus but how many monoliths you work? And remember that the number of monoliths doesn't increase. As for fungus production you probably have 1-0-0 fungus production at this time. Maybe 1-0-1. So you get 2-1-2 with +2 PLANET. Nice but not incredible. Good addition for poor terrain bases.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 20, 2018, 02:13:20 PM
I will decrease most of the multiplication abilities
Could work. Not crazy talk. I guess only downside is AI not really understanding that the abilities are worth half as much as they used to be, but still cost the same. Human player understands just fine and can make the choice.
Nope. Unfortunately, they are hardcoded in box version. Yutzi's patch lets edit them.
Post by: bvanevery on December 20, 2018, 02:26:34 PM
As for fungus production you probably have 1-0-0 fungus production at this time. Maybe 1-0-1. So you get 2-1-2 with +2 PLANET.
In MY 2286 I've got another +1 energy from Centauri Meditation, giving me 1-0-2 in fungus. Oddly when I go Green and get +2 PLANET, I only get 2-1-2 in fungus squares.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 20, 2018, 02:26:53 PM
My RESEARCH is now at an excessive +6.
SE effects are capped at values given in help. So the best you can get is +5 RESEARCH. Everything over it is a waste. I tried to design the table so to limit such waste to 1 above and below, though.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 20, 2018, 02:47:26 PM
Post by: bvanevery on December 20, 2018, 05:04:44 PM
SE effects are capped at values given in help. So the best you can get is +5 RESEARCH. Everything over it is a waste. I tried to design the table so to limit such waste to 1 above and below, though.
Note that some of the overkills are not actually a waste in the real world. For instance, +4 PLANET does raise your Psi attack advantage to +40%. I think excessive EFFIC probably continues to feed the Bureaucracy formula to your advantage. I don't know about +5 vs. +6 RESEARCH, I haven't checked actual game behavior to find out.
Post by: bvanevery on December 20, 2018, 05:16:09 PM
Some changes absorbed from discussion.
BTW I would recommend packaging this in a more installation friendly manner. I should be able to drag and drop all files in 1 action, rather than needing to go into a subfolder, or needing to avoid copying certain files like readme.txt for fear they'll overwrite an official one. In my mod I have readme_mod.txt for instance.
If I have missed something about the creation of a /factions folder in the game directory, let me know, but none of my GOG installations have a /factions folder.
I also think you need a much snappier name for your work than "RightTime". I get that it was probably a functional "work in progress" statement of what you were trying to accomplish in the tech tree, but it's neither memorable nor descriptive of your purposes. My own mod name is not entirely ideal, but at least I didn't get too far off the mark early on when releasing it. A good chunk of it really is about the AI playing better, I did what I could. Once people actually start paying attention to your mod on a regular basis, you're going to find that you don't want to change names or threads, for fear of disrupting the limited amount of attention you worked so hard to get. So it behooves you to get it right at this stage, as best you can, before you're fully committed.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 20, 2018, 05:32:29 PM
If I have missed something about the creation of a /factions folder in the game directory, let me know, but none of my GOG installations have a /factions folder.
That's the thing about faction txts. I do not mod factions per se. That is I do not do custom faction neither I want to change any faction benefits. I am modding the game rules and it is so happens that some rules need to be reflected in faction txts. Unfortunately. This is what I disclaim in readme. Those factions in subfolder are examples of corrected original faction files. If you are playing with modded factions - do no copy them from there but instead apply changes outlined in readme.
Namely:
1. Decrease POLICE rating for all factions by 1. I.e. give -1 POLICE for faction without inherent POLICE modifier, give -2 POLICE for faction that had -1 POLICE, give 0 POLICE for faction that had +1 POLICE, etc.
2. Give all aquatic factions exactly -3 SUPPORT to cope with their enormous production bonus.
The #2 is experimental to see if it work against aquatic production bonus. From my experience I feel this is a little not enough. So I give them some other negative modifiers like -1 EFFICIENCY. giving -4 SUPPORT will be an overkill and would halt their production completely.
I also removed all extra bonuses from aliens but this is entirely optional.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 20, 2018, 05:37:40 PM
I also think you need a much snappier name for your work than "RightTime". I get that it was probably a functional "work in progress" statement of what you were trying to accomplish in the tech tree, but it's neither memorable nor descriptive of your purposes. My own mod name is not entirely ideal, but at least I didn't get too far off the mark early on when releasing it. A good chunk of it really is about the AI playing better, I did what I could. Once people actually start paying attention to your mod on a regular basis, you're going to find that you don't want to change names or threads, for fear of disrupting the limited amount of attention you worked so hard to get. So it behooves you to get it right at this stage, as best you can, before you're fully committed.
Well, I though about "Strategic Balance" mod. But this is toooo generic and overused already.
:)
The main idea is to remove all clutter, put features at (more or less) right positions in the tech tree, and rework some over/under powered strategies to make them less so. That includes weapon and armor progression and unit cost. Unfortunately, as you see, there are many focus areas. It is difficult to name them with one word.
Ideas are welcome.
Post by: bvanevery on December 20, 2018, 06:49:59 PM
I also removed all extra bonuses from aliens but this entirely optional.
In sum though, having gone this far, you are modding factions. You're just not modding them as much as, say, I am. It's fairly easy for you to describe your changes to someone else, in a few sentences, if someone just wants to be inspired by what you're doing. Whereas in my case, it's a long and complex conversation, really no point in me trying to rattle off Points 1. 2. 3.
I'd suggest you not get into the business of leaving it up to the user to fiddle these things. It increases the number of test cases you have to consider when a user gives feedback to you. If you know what the faction settings are, then you can address any shortcomings when you get complaints. If the user wants to fiddle factions into custom configurations, or do "merges" with other mods, let them be responsible for it. You don't even know if they have the editing discipline to do all these things without making typos or other trivial errors. Actually testing work is a serious value add, and you want your work to reflect your discipline and integrity as a game developer, not someone else's dinking around. As you know, there's a long history of a lot of garbage mods for SMAC, not because they didn't have ok basic ideas, but because they were implemented by people who did not have enough release discipline over time. In the present day, such work is all but dead and forgotten.
A practical consequence of you currently lacking commitment to your own faction changes, is I tend to forget at times whether I need to just throw a new alphax.txt on top of your new release, or whether you might have changed something in the faction.txt files too. So that could affect phenomena I report about your mod, if something was missed. I brought this issue up because it's easier than cranking up WinMerge to examine 14 faction.txt files to see what you actually did, or likely didn't do. Another way of dealing with this is a painfully detailed CHANGELOG, as I do. But IMO the root cause is, you changed factions, you really should install all of your changes every time and not leave this in the realm of user chance.
Post by: bvanevery on December 20, 2018, 06:58:43 PM
It is difficult to name them with one word.
When naming with one word won't suffice, think about most important words.
I picked "AI Growth" and that wasn't wrong. The mod is about improving AI performance by giving factions more ability to grow. Both by providing them more land, more distance (Huge map recommendation), and better research focus settings that for some reason trigger better growth AI. "Explore" is the magic, that's the key. This was noticed by someone else in the archives a long time ago, I just went to school on it.
Growth was also supposed to be about simulating population growth more realistically, but that fell by the wayside as development continued. It didn't hold up in the face of gameplay requirements.
In your mod, the main thing I've noticed so far is the consequence of armor. Not sure what I'd call it, but "Armor Something" or "Something Armor" is the 1st thing I'd be thinking about in your case.
The main idea is to remove all clutter,
I'm realizing some other major ideas in your mod, that I have not fully experienced yet, because I haven't finished a game. You only do Fission engines. It's a valid approach. I came close to going that way myself, before I finally backed off and implemented something more like the original game. I feel bound by keeping content of the original game lest people get too mad at me, and you don't. That's another important distinction, something that sets your mod apart.
"Fission Armor mod", as one possible name.
Post by: bvanevery on December 20, 2018, 09:16:20 PM
MY 2290. Domai just punked Lal with a mind control probe. Size 8 base, 7 squares from capitol. 377 energy reserves after the action. He is the Governor now, he could have been rich, but I smell a rat. Lal is Democratic Planned Power Thought Control. That should put Lal at +1 PROBE, not any kind of disadvantage. Domai is Fundamentalist Planned Survival None, making him +2 PROBE, but I don't think that changes mind control cost, only success rate. Saving game and cranking up autosave to see what Domai used to be worth. Ok, he had 1109 credits. Spending 700 credits might or might not be sane, it's debatable. Lal has 453 credits in reserve, meaning that substantial reserves do not matter.
Looking at the previous turn, Domai sent 2 mindworms after that base as well. 1 boil, 1 pre-boil. The city was empty last turn, I wonder why Domai didn't just attack conventionally or walk in?
MY 2291. I buy 3 advanced techs from Lal for 300. I know we're "good" allies but this seems cheap. I wonder if the number of prereqs has something to do with the computed expense of tech? I know the weights on the techs have something to do with it.
MY 2301. Lal is 3 techs ahead of me again. I don't feel like I'm the RESEARCH faction. Domai is 2 techs ahead, and I haven't forgotten that he beat me to Secrets of the Human Brain, despite being -2 RESEARCH. Something is not working, and I'm doubting that it's just my small number of cities.
Should I rock out and go for a population boom? To do that in this mod, people have to be very, very happy. I've got infrastructural prereqs for that. Almost everyone has got a Tree Farm, a Fusion Lab, and a Research Hospital. I think if I can't do that now, then basically, it can't be done in any reasonable way, at any appropriate needed time. So I will try to do it, even though I'm unsure if success will buy me anything in the scheme of things.
I just remembered that due to interruptions today, I have not actually installed the newest alphax.txt.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 20, 2018, 09:44:27 PM
But IMO the root cause is, you changed factions, you really should install all of your changes every time and not leave this in the realm of user chance.
Good advice. I'll do it.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 20, 2018, 09:52:02 PM
Planetary Datalinks, for lack of pressing priorities. With +2 INDUSTRY, cost is 640. That's exorbitant for what it does.
Things like that is pretty difficult to estimate good. I'll take your suggestion on it. My take on this is that this SP gives you about 10-15% technologies for free (on top of base research). So being 10% ahead of others in research is a big advantage.
Post by: bvanevery on December 20, 2018, 10:52:38 PM
So being 10% ahead of others in research is a big advantage.
You are never going to be 10% ahead of anyone else on RESEARCH with the Datalinks. It only gives old techs that 3 factions already know. If you are typically behind on tech, like say the stock Believers or your version of them, it will get you to a basic tech parity. If you are ahead of everyone on tech, it is nearly worthless to you. It is a block to keep other "bad RESEARCH" factions from catching up. Being in possession of it, also slows down the AI tech trading economy. They don't have techs, you control the trade.
Planetary Datalinks will allow you to cost shift into some other area of empire building, because you don't need to try very hard on early tech. You can be 10%..20% ahead on something else, like money or units, because you didn't have to spend it on tech.
For instance in my mod, the Data Angels get techs from everyone with no infiltration. I thought it was unrealistic to expect the AI to send probe teams across the board to infiltrate everybody, making the faction ability pretty useless to an AI. So I changed it so it would actually be useful to an AI. My Data Angels are fierce at the beginning of the game, because they get techs from everybody. Got this, got this, got this, got this, got that. But in my mod, nobody's averse to trading Tier 1 and Tier 2 techs anyways, so it's not quite as huge an advantage as one would think. As early game progresses to middle, the Data Angels aren't as big an advantage anymore. Factions are researching techs in a more specialized way, those that survived and thrived that is. Nobody has 3 of the same tech so you don't end up with much.
In another for instance, in my current play of your mod, both Lal and Domai are researching techs faster than I am, even though I'm Zhakarov. I built the Datalinks, it's no help at all. Only 2 dominant factions other than myself. They're not researching the same things, and even if they were, that's only 2 factions who know the stuff. The other 4 players are too wimpy to know anything.
Making this wait until midgame, and making it expensive, is a special kind of uselessness. I built it because I literally had nothing better to do.
Post by: bvanevery on December 20, 2018, 11:11:11 PM
I finally remember to drop in alphax.txt and all the faction.txt files from 1.3.
MY 2305. 4 other factions just started the Ascetic Virtues. I was wondering where my copy of the requisite tech was? I see that it's Gene Splicing, so this must have changed with 1.3. Well I was working on the Nano Factory, which is boring, nothing better to do. I switch, apply another Crawler, and my remaining cash to buy it.
MY 2306. I complete the Ascetic Virtues, changing my -5 POLICE rating to -4. Lal loses another big city to the Drones, conventional conquest this time. The Spartans land a pestering probe and rover on my island. I complete a Shard Infantry prototype. Almost everyone is working on Robotic Assembly Plants.
MY 2307. The Spartans foolishly step forward in front of my city, and I blow them to smithereens. Armored probe teams work real good.
MY 2309. As I settle a new base, I contemplate my -1 SUPPORT. Why am I even doing Democratic? It gives 2 benefits and 4 liabilities. Police State gives 4 benefits and 1 liability, hardly fair. I think I was doing Democratic for political reasons for awhile, and for the possibility of growth, which doesn't seem strong enough to justify this. Shall I let Lal die? I was sorta eyeballing his Secret Projects anyways, figuring Domai would take them, then I would take them.
I think about how I now have the Ascetic Virtues and that settles it. I switch to Police State. Now I've got +0 POLICE.
MY 2310. Cybernetic has 3 benefits and 3 liabilities. 1 of those benefits may be wasted as I'm not sure +6 RESEARCH buys me anything compared to +5. Eudaimonic has 2 benefits and 3 liabilities. Thought Control has 4 benefits, 2 liabilities, and will get me +3 POLICE. I choose that! Breakthroughs stay the same at 9 turns. Income goes up from 45 to 51, the difference between a -2 and a -1 ECONOMY. INDUSTRY is at a whopping +5.
MY 2311. With the new Plants, 2 of my bases do 15..19 eco-damage. Others don't do any damage, presumably due to Tree Farms. I go Green. I had intended to earlier, but kept liking GROWTH and INDUSTRY bonuses instead. Green has a big -2 INDUSTRY penalty, but now I've got INDUSTRY coming out of my ears and don't care. Eco-damage drops to 3..6. Fungus provides 2-1-2. Some cities like eating it a little bit, others don't. It will be helpful for brand new cities.
MY 2312. UN Headquarters bites the dust!
MY 2313. An energy market spike bumps me to 680 credits. That's one of the few times I remember it happening in my favor instead of some horrible opposite. I think that was a 200..300 credit gain.
Mindworms pop next to one of my cities. A 2-3t-1 unit is this game's premiere mindworm defense. I still don't know Neural Grafting or an equivalent tech for gaining 2 abilities. I'm only facing a mindworm and 2 locusts, so I don't stress. I start an untrained 2-3t-1 unit in that city, just in case.
The Morganites and the Drones begin the Nano Factory, so I follow suit.
MY 2314. The Locust have insufficient offensive power to cause me any trouble. They inflict slight wounds but it was only 2 of them. Coast is clear. I rush the Nano Factory because I can.
MY 2315. I pick up Doctrine: Air Power from the Datalinks. Now that the Peacekeepers are eroding, I've prepared a land probe team and a Cruiser Transport to steal Retroviral Engineering from Domai. Although the Datalinks could give it to me before I get over there. I'm making Supply Crawlers because I do not feel threatened. Santiago is a joke. The Pirates haven't come to bother me in awhile. I'm not sure why: they are at war with their neighbors the Peacekeepers, but clearly Lal is going down the tubes fast. They aren't at war with anyone else.
MY 2317. Got a volcano erupting up north, got a mindworm pop last turn and this turn. Only got 5..8 eco-damage in these cities. Ok whatever. It'll calm down eventually (?) and I can eat fungus just fine. I don't really want all my handworked forests ruined by a global flood though.
Post by: bvanevery on December 21, 2018, 12:39:17 AM
tiny bubbles |
MY 2318. Ok, um, flooding. People wonder why I usually don't build factories. More mindworms in exactly the same spot too. Glad I brought the green Trance unit over. I'll build a 2nd Command Center in 1 of these cities and belt out some Trance units there. Routing Crawlers away from the Scuffle, I learn that fungus yields more energy to a Crawler than a forest does.
Lal snivels for 75 credits. He doesn't like my government. I buy 2 techs from him and send my probe team and cruiser transport back home. Now I have the ability to raise land. I think I'll make a gazillion Super Rover Formers and go stomp someone. I'm bored. If I just sit here indefinitely, it seems like Domai wins. It's a short distance to the far east of Lal's empire, but without rails, that's a long ways to the front line with Domai. Getting to Santiago is not that far, but conquering her is not valuable.
Good grief, mag tubes are really late game in this mod. There goes my standard invasion method!
MY 2320. I'm getting mindworms up the butt. This doesn't make that much sense. Checked alphax.txt, numerator / denominator for Global Warming frequency is normal. So what gives? Domai is polluting some, but not "Free Market bad" as he's only Simple. Whatever. More Command Centers and Trance units.
I'm going east with the Super Formers. It'll be slow, but it's clearly more important to invade Domai and have direct access to his lands. Maybe by the time the land bridge is done, I'll have researched mag tubes?
MY 2323. I've disbanded my Shard weapon and removed all Shard designs, because 1.3 made it available later than my current tech. My best weapon is currently Tachyon.
MY 2324. Roze asks me for a Pact. Eh, why not. She's also got one with Domai! She won't go to war with him. She doesn't like my government. Whatever.
MY 2325. I gain Nanominiaturization, which gives the Hovertank (good) and Algorithmic Enhancement. The latter is nonsensical as we haven't even seen the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm yet.
Post by: bvanevery on December 21, 2018, 02:22:09 AM
glub glub |
MY 2329. The sinking is still modest, but it has doubled. I haven't built any new factories, but my populations have gotten a little bigger. Domai has researched 3 new techs including Quantum Machinery. I guess I shouldn't automatically worry, since there's nothing more than a Fission reactor in this game, but he seemingly advances awfully fast for a -2 RESEARCH faction. I remember having serious gripes about his rate of research in AARs I played with the stock game. I'm sending a probe team over to do some theft. My land bridge is advancing, into Pirate waters because I'm squeamish about destroying the resource bonuses that pop out of the water.
MY 2330. My contingent of Super Formers is large, 20 units. It is enough to raise any further land bridge I think. However, entry into Pirate waters away from my own territory, has exorbitantly increased the land raising cost to 960 credits. I have to either build a base out there, or find another route. I have stopped making Super Formers and have started making Centauri Preserves and a Naval Yard, in anticipation of sending forth a combined arms task force. My capitol is working on an Aerospace Complex.
MY 2331. Removing a fungal patch has reduced the raising cost to 320 credits. Exorbitant, but not beyond my ability to afford. Still, I prefer to build a force and do this in a less costly manner. I send the Super Formers towards the Spartans. I steal Quantum Machinery from the Drones, which provides a strength 17 Quantum Laser. Weapons seem to be going obsolete fast. A mindworm and sealurk force may prove to be a good idea.
the long jog |
MY 2333. I complete a land link to the Spartan island. It contains the Monsoon Jungle. I will retreat these units and work on a link to the back of Lal's empire, far to the west. Lal is still my ally, but he hates my politics and could end it with me. I have acquired Nanohospital capability. As the University, I feel obligated to build them.
westward link |
MY 2340. I complete a land link to Lal's rear. Lacking a clear way to the Drones, I realize I haven't built Soil Enrichers, so I'll do that. I have a Quantum Laser ship en route to the Pirate city that was making it expensive for me to raise land. Meanwhile I'm building a lot of non-military stuff.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 21, 2018, 03:56:54 AM
You are never going to be 10% ahead of anyone else on RESEARCH with the Datalinks.
Agree. What do you want to price it then?
Post by: bvanevery on December 21, 2018, 04:24:52 AM
Agree. What do you want to price it then?
It's not worth any more than the Human Genome Project, whatever you did with that. IMO it should also be an early project, not a late one.
In my mod, I took the additional step of making its tech easy to Discover (tech=4), but hard to Explore, Build, or Conquer (growth=1, wealth=1, power=1). My intention was to give Discover factions an easy clear shot at completing the Datalinks early on, but to give other factions the opportunity if it didn't happen for some reason. With these weights, in a broad tech tree, it didn't work out that way. Nobody tends to figure it out! I might have to change this.
Post by: bvanevery on December 21, 2018, 04:47:14 AM
not my fault |
MY 2341. Lal has triggered a little bit more flooding.
MY 2342. I learn Secrets of Alpha Centauri, which gives me the completely nonsensical Non-lethal Methods.
closing the gap |
MY 2348. Given that Domai is crushing all of us, I decide I'm being a little too aesthetically picky about my land bridges. I will never gain any advantage from the kelp in the Sargasso Sea at the rate I'm (not) growing. Also I've got Habitation Dome capability if I could ever get any growth going. I still just won't get rid of resource specials; if that loses me this particular game, so beit. I think something about this game is unbalanced anyways. Possibly way too many INDUSTRY bonuses, but I'm not sure.
MY 2350. I finally research Monopole Magnets, giving me the opportunity to employ my most traditional way of destroying enemies. As you know, I already have the 20 Super Formers necessary to do it. It may be a bit of an exploit, but this version of Domai seems to deserve it!
MY 2355. I've completed a rail network, and only need 1 square to complete my land bridge. However I'm being assaulted by Locusts, so I've stopped military production in favor of Hybrid Forests. Just can't seem to shake the eco-damage in this game.
Post by: bvanevery on December 21, 2018, 07:31:12 AM
contact |
I've completed the land bridge, and even a rail to my 1st victim city. However I've also completed Mind/Machine Interface, and I want the Cyborg Factory and the Cloudbase Academy. My invasion is not exactly well timed. Still, I've probably got enough previous surplus units to wipe at least this base out and hold the line.
tough defense |
Or so I thought. Quantum Lasers don't really cut through Probability armor behind a Perimeter Defense. I think I'll make this into more of a siege.
too pricey |
I thought I'd be clever and raise the land so that I can assault with mindworms. Unfortunately it's too expensive. I don't have the kind of money I'm used to having in my own mod, due to the differences in social engineering choices. I only make 31 credits/turn and I blew a lot of cash to finish The Theory of Everything quickly.
3:30 AM, going to bed.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 21, 2018, 02:26:25 PM
Actually, when I look at weapon vs armor graphs for boxed game and my mod, they are not that conceptually different. I understood designers idea to increase weapon strength toward the end of the game so they can penetrate tachyon field. I did the same. See pictures attached. How do you insert pictures in the post by the way?
If you look at the SMAX picture then you'll see it's biggest flaw. Starting at about 25% of the game the weapon is consistently twice as strong and keeps growing. Missile Launcher discovery is twice as strong than contemporary Plasma Steel Armor. Even if defender rushes armor technology in attempt to save themselves they can only get as far as to Silksteel Armor bringing attack/defense ratio to 3:2 only at best. Same story with Plasma Shard and Probability Sheath. And this is assuming defender keeps up on research with attacker. If attacker is somewhat advanced they can easily achieve 2.5-3.0 weapon advantage.
In my mod I made armor coming at quick succession at the beginning and at a regular intervals. Same for weapon. This way it stays about 1:1 until 40% of the game and diverges at 2:1 only at the very end of the game. Even if attacker advances in research by 10-20% they wont get more than 4:3 advantage around middle of the game. With such odds attacker won't have advantage at all attacking bases even without Perimeter defense and only sensor.
Do you still think "Fission armor" will be good name reflecting this change?
How about something like "Defensive" or "Improved Defense" one?
Post by: bvanevery on December 21, 2018, 05:47:33 PM
How do you insert pictures in the post by the way?
Use the full editor, not the quick editor. Second line of icons, 5th icon from the left, is a thing that looks like a colored orange rectangle on top of a colored blue rectangle. That's the button for inserting a picture inline.
When you click that, you want the "file to upload" line. Click "Browse" and then the name of your file. There's a lot of other superfluous junk on that screen which can confuse you. It's even possible to get caught in a kind of Inception loop where you're editing an editing an editing of a picture.
At some point you'll want to set up your own Album for the screenshots you're producing. If you don't, it'll still work, but it goes under some kind of general pool of screenshots. BUncle would prefer that you use an album associated with yourself. I created something called "AAR screenshots" a long time ago and it has been the default ever since, I never have to change it.
Quote
Missile Launcher discovery is twice as strong than contemporary Plasma Steel Armor.
Not in my mod. :D I wonder what your analytic tool produces for my mod nowadays? Barring a wrinkle at the beginning, it's rigidly slaved the idea that "weapons and armor of strength X both come at Tier X". I designed my Tiers very rigidly, i.e. Tier 4 always comes at roughly the same time period in the game. That's because there's such a density of tech as prereqs for any given tech, that I can count on the probabilistic behavior to be consistent. I can say with complete confidence that any Tier 4 tech is at least a "midgame" tech, there's no way to get it any earlier.
Quote
In my mod I made armor coming at quick succession at the beginning and at a regular intervals. Same for weapon.
What I have observed in my current game of your mod, is that I have frequently been at a 2:1 advantage, but it has just as frequently gone away in due course. As I have been playing on a Huge map, and my starting position was isolated on an island, I have rarely been in combat with anyone so far. Now that I'm actually seeking combat with a mag tube, I find that my 2:1 units can't punch through a Perimeter Defense, since it doubles the defense. I find that the enemy has actually deployed enough Trance units to make it problematic to overrun him with mindworms. That said, my mindworms might be tougher than I think, because they're coming off the assembly line as Mature Boils. That's from Biology Lab in every city, + Xenoempathy Dome affecting all cities, + Centauri Preserve in cities dedicated to mindworm production at present. I have Temple of Planet capability but am not committed to using it at present. I'm wondering where the Pholus Mutagen went, haven't seen it yet.
Quote
Do you still think "Fission armor" will be good name reflecting this change?
How about something like "Defensive" or "Improved Defense" one?
I can't really commit to a name recommendation yet. I hope I've helped with the brainstorming.
Post by: bvanevery on December 21, 2018, 06:36:17 PM
MY 2362. Yeah, sure you can raise land to keep a city from sinking. At the expense of landlocking it! Got an expensive and useless Quantum Battleship in production now. Well maybe I'll find a way to edit my coast to free it up someday. Actually, no, screw this, I'll just play the turn over and not do it. It's also going to destroy any sea resource specials next to a coastal land base, this just isn't a good approach. It's all because you can't raise land inside the city itself, where it is needed.
MY 2363. Maybe the 1st time one raises land next to a city, the city's altitude goes up after all. I'm not sure why such a city is now at 837 meters, as it didn't seem to be before. I will check more carefully with the next city. Here's a "before" shot of Gagarin Memorial:
no sink me please |
And here is after raising on the same turn:
I don wanna die |
Maybe next turn the altitude will update? Maybe it only updates when the land sinking cycle is implemented? That's what seemed to happen this turn with the other city. I've raised land next to the 3rd sinking city in this manner, so we'll see if my cities are safe next turn.
not ready to invade anyways |
Good grief, the flooding is bad enough that I'm no longer connected to Domai's territory! Oh well, I'm preoccupied by eco-damage that just won't quit. I'm building Temples of Planet in some places even after Hybrid Forests to mitigate the damage. Domai started on the Neural Amplifier, which I started in a minor city a long time ago. It's nowhere near getting done, and I suspect Domai has vast resources for finishing it quickly. So I switched it to the Cloudbase Academy, which will never get done in that city alone. It won't get done with money either, I don't have it. I'm really production limited, I need Hybrid Forests and Temples of Planet.
Post by: bvanevery on December 21, 2018, 07:29:23 PM
all those other creeps |
MY 2364. This ain't gonna stop. It has nothing to do with my civ. I suspect that the SE table has given runaway production capability to the other factions, particularly Domai. I don't ever remember a game where the AI was able to get this far ahead on the graph and force this kind of ecological damage on everyone else. At least on a Huge map, there doesn't seem much way to mitigate it, if one starts at a distance from other factions. Which is the point of a Huge map, you're not really supposed to have near neighbors, although it does happen. Not like I've had the productivity this game to send an invasion force to Domai.
Domai had the temerity to travel up my rail and hit my picket with a mindworm. What did he do, land it on shore last turn, then move this turn? Whatever. It died, since luckily I had used a Trance unit.
Still believing in my death |
The altitude of my 2 threatened cities did not update. So, it's not a turn delay thing. I hope that when the flooding update finally comes, it's predictable rather than capricious. We'll see. I've got another city threatened now, because the water is going to go so high. Raised that land too.
supply denominations |
MY 2365. My capitol finally completed stuff, so now I can get to work on Secret Projects. I have created supply crawlers in various denominations by giving them more armor. This is so that high production cities don't waste the production when encasing it into a supply crawler. The values of the crawlers are odd because I have +1 INDUSTRY. If I ever change my SE model then I could rename them according to the number of bars of production they cost, but there's no need now, as I can't think of a better SE model than what I've got.
whatever floats your boat |
MY 2366. After a flooding update, Gagarin Memorial is now shown at altitude 330 meters and out of danger.
a hair away from disaster |
However Climactic Research is at 10 meters! My previous land raising next to it, clearly didn't do it any good. I guess I'll go at it again. Another city is also endangered and not saved, but at least it's not in as much immediate peril.
Post by: Geo on December 21, 2018, 10:24:50 PM
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 21, 2018, 11:28:36 PM
I wonder what your analytic tool produces for my mod nowadays?
Here is for some of you versions.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 21, 2018, 11:32:26 PM
What I have observed in my current game of your mod, is that I have frequently been at a 2:1 advantage, but it has just as frequently gone away in due course.
Sorry about that. That's a work in progress. I am tuning this. The chart I posted is for v1.4. There you'll see armor coming up quicker.
Post by: bvanevery on December 22, 2018, 03:38:21 AM
Here is for some of you versions.
I guess that's demonstrating the "lock step" effect.
Post by: bvanevery on December 22, 2018, 04:44:29 AM
feather fall |
MY 2369. Climactic Research is now at 211 meters, not 10 meters, but it is still in danger of sinking. I guess raising land works, but how well?
Another curious phenomenon is I've seen Pressure Domes be instantly completed in some cities when put in the build queue. It doesn't consistently happen but I've gotten some free ones that way. They're not designated in alphax.txt as something that should become free. I do see that Recycling Tanks are supposed to become free with Advanced Ecological Engineering. This is true even in the unmodded game. Maybe it gets confused about whether Recycling Tanks or Pressure Domes are supposed to be free, as the latter does implicitly include the benefit of a Recycling Tank.
MY 2370. Domai begins the Cloudbase Academy and the Cyborg Factory. I've been working on the former a lot, and I'm able to rush it this turn, with a lot of credits spent unfortunately. I don't know if I'll be as successful with the Cyborg Factory. I've also researched the tech for Clinical Immortality, but as I'm probably ahead of Domai on that, I haven't started it. It's a race for the Cyborg Factory. Maybe I can win it, as I do have 4 cities producing Supply Crawlers of various denominations.
MY 2371. I am 1st to learn Orbital Spaceflight. Perhaps instead of invasion I should just build a pile of Sky Hydroponics Labs and get big.
MY 2372. Well I was wrong about that, because Domai just launched a Sky Hydroponics Lab. Morgan and Domai have also both begun Clinical Immortality. If I don't even have any tech advantage over anyone, then I'm not sure what to think about how this game is going to go. I haven't been beat out of all Secret Project races just yet though.
I contact Santiago and she signs a Truce. Others aren't budging.
I'm beginning to think this mod has mostly rendered me impotent, taking away choices I've usually had to advance my cause. While at the same time giving away the farm to the AI, due to overpowered INDUSTRY bonuses. I think the basic theory of operation regarding INDUSTRY is prima facie wrong, that it can be easily set to equivalent numbers of minerals and so forth. Such reasoning may not take into account an AI that produces city after city, or conquers them, and really isn't limited by penalties such as EFFIC. The phenomenon of improving city after city is not linear. Or maybe the dynamic range of INDUSTRY is the problem, especially since factions get the equivalent of a +5 INDUSTRY bonus on Transcend anyways.
Domai's government is currently Democratic Free Market Power None. That doesn't presently jibe with my overpowered INDUSTRY thesis, as with his faction bonus he nets +0 INDUSTRY. But he may have done something different in the past. I haven't paid that much attention to him over time. Free Market definitely explains why the world is still going to hell in a hand basket though.
1:20 AM, going to bed.
Post by: bvanevery on December 22, 2018, 02:02:59 PM
Land continues to flood. I've got 3 cities that don't seem to want to stabilize even though I've raised land next to them. I'm stuck in a treadmill of dealing with sinking.
MY 2376. Fearing a Domai that has unlimited voting power, I switch production from the Cyborg Factory to Clinical Immortality. It will complete next turn. I'm not sure if I can still beat him to the Factory or not. I'm basically starting over, but my production is pretty good.
MY 2377. Domai only needs 9 turns to complete the Cyborg Factory. I research Pre-Sentient Algorithms. That's not terribly useful because in principle, anyone can make units with Algorithmic Enhancement to waltz right past the HSA defense. In practice, I wonder if the AI knows to do that? I'll be finding out if Domai beats me to the Factory.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 22, 2018, 02:30:17 PM
Here is for some of you versions.
I guess that's demonstrating the "lock step" effect.
I don't know what is lock step but you definitely have all items concentrated toward later game. You also have armor following weapon exactly. Many people already tested AI cannot penetrate 1:1 armor behind tachyon field. So any AI territorial advance will halt completely in latter game. This is for you to feel out, though.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 22, 2018, 02:35:07 PM
Post by: bvanevery on December 22, 2018, 02:43:27 PM
You also have armor following weapon exactly.
That's "lock step effect".
Quote
Many people already tested AI cannot penetrate 1:1 armor behind tachyon field. So any AI territorial advance will halt completely in latter game. This is for you to feel out, though.
I never build tachyon fields anymore. It's a waste of time because the AI doesn't know how to bring enough units to invade anything by that point in the game. As far as AIs vs. AIs, nobody's built a single Tachyon Field and they've been available for awhile now. I think the human player not having the ability to cakewalk the AI when it's on defense, is far more important than contemplating what the AI might do on offense. Hence my mod favors defense more than the stock game does.
I think I'd be ok with removing Tachyon Field from the game entirely. A pity to lose the voice acting upon its 1st completion though. "The Fall of Sparta".
Post by: bvanevery on December 22, 2018, 02:54:03 PM
At 40 meters, I chicken out about the land stabilizing on its own, and start building a Pressure Dome in one of my threatened cities. The others already have Pressure Domes by way of that completion trickery earlier in the game.
MY 2380. The very expensive Quantum battleship, that took me forever to produce and then sail around my island at a slow 6 squares per turn, is summarily destroyed by a Drone Sealurk. The Sealurk had a -30% offensive rating due to Free Market. This proves the complete uselessness of building expensive ships.
I'm about 60% done with the Cyborg Factory. If I didn't have any crawlers at all, it would complete in 11 turns. Domai needs 5 turns.
what have I done to deserve this |
MY 2381. A stack of 8 Locusts appears near my Cyborg Factory city. The stack threatens 2 cities so I move old peon units into both. Some may die, a lot will probably live. None have Trance. I need 6 turns to complete the Factory. I'm just short of the cash needed to do it this turn. Domai needs 4 turns. I don't have any crawlers completing next turn, just the accident of multi-turn production. But I believe he can't rush it before I get it, as I will have the cash next turn. I don't think I need to spend my last Artifact left over from ancient times.
My sinking city finally stabilized at 891 meters. Altitude is broken somehow.
MY 2382. 1 Locust attacks harmlessly. 3 fly towards Domai's lands. 4 fly south of my lands, threatening different cities. I move my peons accordingly. Domai needs 2 turns to complete the Cyborg Factory. I rush mine with 1028 cash.
unwanted minerals |
MY 2383. Finally realized why I'm getting fungal blooms. I've got an industrial boom, didn't ask for it. The 4 earlier Locusts that flew south, have moved completely away from my territory. I think they're heading for a distant Free Drone city to the southeast. If so, it means that PLANET rating has a huge influence on what the Locusts will do. I realign my peons for the new threat and hope for the best.
I start to redeploy my peons, when I realize my rail networks have been disrupted yet again. This is getting old. I'm not enjoying being forced to play a global warming scenario that I didn't myself create for this long. I reload my turn and start over, to reconnect rails before I start moving units around.
The Hunter-Seeker Algorithm costs 900 minerals. That is grossly excessive for something that doesn't even do what it's supposed to at this point in the game. Anyone can make probe teams with Algorithmic Enhancement by now. I'm going to build the thing anyways, just to prove a point about how onerous production demands affect gameplay. I'm not going to build piles of Supply Crawlers anymore, as the HSA is not important enough to go through a huge effort. Instead I'm finally building some Sky Hydroponics Labs.
Morgan has started work on the Dream Twister. Might be nice to have and I'm sending an algorithmically enhanced Cruiser Probe Team towards him, but I don't know if it'll make it.
I've realized that although I have Orbital Spaceflight, I can't make a missile. And thus, no Planet Busters.
Post by: bvanevery on December 22, 2018, 04:41:35 PM
I start on a Conventional Missile prototype. I hope I'm not about to enter an era of being pestered by CMs. I might quit the game in that case, calling these runaway production and global warming phenomena an unfun lost cause to play. I'm supposed to have agency in a game, not just be forced to react and be on the defensive / repair duty all the time. I have had Flechette Defense capability for a long time, but I haven't built any.
MY 2386. Domai begins the Space Elevator. I'm starting to lose the will to compete with him. I've already done massive, massive Supply Crawler battles to complete Secret Projects, I don't want to do it anymore. This game is a drag. If nothing else, it demonstrates a phenomenon I was already aware of. The University's +2 RESEARCH simply isn't worth much in the real world on Transcend.
I send the 1 Cruiser Probe Team I've got in the region at Domai. I run into a Pirate ship and spend 278 credits to subvert it, trying to keep my Probe Team alive. Next turn depends on AI behavior because the Pirates do have a base with a unit that could come kill the Probe Team if he likes. I guess it wasn't a very good plan and just shows how tired and bored of all of this. I don't want to have to plan every single goddamn detail anymore, it's 2384 FFS.
A player needs to feel success at regular intervals. Not just have things be "balanced", which in the real world means the AI gets to exploit its advantages at your expense indefinitely. The AI has its tricks of how it's supposed to do well in the game. I'm supposed to have mine too.
Domai interlopes with a mindworm and a Spore Launcher, on the eastern rail line that almost touches his land. I kill the Spore Launcher but barely survive. My Mature Boil mindworm fails to kill his pre-boil mindworm. This is because he built the Neural Amplifier in his capitol quite awhile ago. I had started on it 1st but lacked the productivity to finish it. I went for the Cloudbase Academy instead. I did not think much about that SP being strategically important at the time, but it's a little galling that the Free Market -3 PLANET guy is standing up to the +2 PLANET Green guy this way.
I never figured out where the Manifold Nexus was. I finally just looked for it. It's in oceanic Drone territory. It's on a small island, that has sunk so badly that the center of the Nexus doesn't have any artwork right now. As Domai didn't put a land base on the island, I believe nobody has claim over the Nexus. Am I orbital insertion capable now? If so I could have this. Yes, Graviton Theory is still the tech for orbital insertions.
I've already resolved that I refuse to win this game by Transcending, if I even can. I think the destruction of human individuality is the most completely depressing fate for everyone that I can imagine. Why not just convert all of humanity into rocks and trees? In general I am morally opposed to this ending and would probably only pursue it for tournament victory purposes. Which isn't the case here.
Hmm, I wonder how many friends I'd make if I got rid of that ending, if I changed the narrative of what happens? Some people have already howled and complained about me making Miriam not a cartoon cutout, but eh, what does /r/patientgamers know anyways? They didn't like my mod, only 2 upvotes. They do allow me to have a "SMAC modder" flair though, so all is not lost.
It's noon. I'm clearly bored out of my mind, so I'm going to save the game and resume later, before I rage quit.
Post by: bvanevery on December 22, 2018, 09:20:04 PM
Well I guess I could do an orbital drop probe team, just about anywhere that doesn't have an Aerospace Complex. I have the Xenoempathy Dome so I could infiltrate through a fungus connection. Designing a suitable hovertank unit for this purpose. How am I out of unit designs? I ditch all the Quantum Laser designs because I'll have Graviton guns soon enough. Algorithmic Enhancement or Amphibious Pods? I'm thinking the former for now; latter for Pirates, not the problem. Maybe I can use these units to sabotage Space Elevator production as well. I've got -5 PROBE so survival rate is likely low.
I need this Drop team faster, so I switch the industrial boom city to it. Doing what I gotta.
MY 2387. I luck out! The Pirates kill the wounded ship I subverted last turn, not my Cruiser Probe Team. I proceed to a target somewhat deeper than the front line, so that I'll have followup options available later. Unfortunately it has an interlock. Fortunately I prevail and get Temporal Mechanics! My unit even survived and returned to base, promoted to Veteran. Well done. I will begin the Space Elevator next turn in my capitol, after my Conventional Missile prototype completes.
4:50 PM. Dog wants to go for a walk, so this drama will continue later.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 22, 2018, 09:51:30 PM
A player needs to feel success at regular intervals. Not just have things be "balanced", which in the real world means the AI gets to exploit its advantages at your expense indefinitely. The AI has its tricks of how it's supposed to do well in the game. I'm supposed to have mine too.
Regardless of your intentions and attitude toward it I appreciate you are spending so much time on it. Thank you for it. You are playing it even more than I do.
:)
Different people like different games. There is no judgment for the game preference as it is a fantasy and everybody is entitled on their own. Some people actually like to fell success at a regular intervals. Those play slot machines. Some like to challenge their mind. These compete in two-or-more multiplier games. So my mod definitely won't satisfy everybody. Only people like me.
I don't understand why are you so frustrated about balancing games. Aren't you working on some kind of a balance in your mod yourself? I guess the question is not about balance and advantages but about ease. My mod on top of Induktio makes it really difficult to win. Sort of next few level beyond Transcend. So if you feel it difficult - try switching to lower level. That'll make it easier and probably more enjoyable to you. This is not a joke I am serious. You may even win faster this way.
Post by: bvanevery on December 23, 2018, 01:37:22 AM
Regardless of your intentions and attitude toward it I appreciate you are spending so much time on it. Thank you for it.
No prob. Although after this game, I swear I'm going to get back to my own work.
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You are playing it even more than I do. :)
In all seriousness that might imply something.
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I don't understand why are you so frustrated about balancing games. Aren't you working on some kind of a balance in your mod yourself?
I think authorship of a game, is in the writing. If you have "sentences that are not good", metaphorically speaking, then that is something I notice and make comments on. Sentences are a matter of taste, but, in writing there is also craft. What the craft of game design is, is also a matter of taste.
I have my tastes, I write as I write, and evaluate as I evaluate. I do not think all game designs and game designers are equal. I think some approaches, and some game designers, are decidedly inferior at their work. I'm prepared to back up any assertions I make about such, whether something is more in the realm of taste and opinion, or whether someone is doing a basically boring lazy bad job. I don't subscribe to the idea, that "everything is ok". I do recognize, however, that demographics are sufficiently large nowadays, that one can find a target audience for many reeking, stinking piles of @#$. Not all though. I take some comfort in that. I wonder where the line gets drawn, as to "completely unsellable".
I do not like the game industry. I think they do most things wrong, and SMAC is currently the only title I'm playing. The only title I want is Six Ages (https://sixages.com/), but they haven't coughed up a PC version yet.
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My mod on top of Induktio makes it really difficult to win.
I have no opinion on Induktio's .exe patching as I have not played it, other than a very early version before sparks started flying between us. It had serious flaws back then, although that was not the nature of disagreement between us. It wasn't ready to be called a proper game back then; I doubt even he would have. Our fight was over the boundary between his work and that of other modders, like me. I don't even know what his position is on that now, or what he's doing in practice.
I imagine he's done a lot of work since the early days, and the quality of his AI work is surely higher by now. But I'm not interested in giving him the testing resources. I mean, I've put in a few days of work here to test your stuff, I'm not going to do that for just anybody. There are mountains of game devs out on Reddit who would just love if I gave their work that level of attention, that kind of testing and feedback. Ain't gonna happen, I'd never get anything done. All indie devs are in that same boat, where the hell to get real testing resources. I judged the Independent Games Festival for 6 years, back in the day. That's a kind of pretty serious testing resources. Sorta. Pissed off some game developers when I told them what I really thought. I might have caused developer <--> judge interactions to get muzzled, which is a pity as far as useful feedback is concerned.
My own next priority is to get on with making a commercial game somehow. I gotta keep my eye on that prize, and not get bogged down on testing that doesn't actually matter to me. I know I can write a better 4X game from scratch, than anybody's gonna patch SMAC to be. I can directly address problems we've all observed over the years, and I can game design various problems out of existence to begin with.
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Sort of next few level beyond Transcend. So if you feel it difficult - try switching to lower level.
Heracy! Into the Punishment Sphere with you. Seriously, if you've modded things to be unwinnable on Transcend, your design is a failure. I don't believe in "monster" factions either, that some people seem to enjoy the "challenge" of. A stupid AI that is given piles more resources than you are, is still a stupid AI. Not worth spending brain cells dealing with IMO. I've seen "stupid AI, infinite resources" play out in countless other games. It's not worth the time.
The most objectionable thing I've experienced in my current game, is not actual fighting of the Drones. There hasn't been any. What I object to, is the way they have precipitated continuous global flooding. I don't get to do anything about this, I only get to react. Tools in the game that did give me an ability to react, like Launch Solar Shade, you took away from me. That's not cool, if I'm forced to play something that I didn't ask for. It's not like I used chemical weapons on everyone willy nilly, or dropped nukes, or built bloated factories poisoning Planet. I did none of those things. Suffering the consequences those things is not much fun, but at least if I had done them, they'd be my consequences. Instead, this has turned into "the Domai game", aka flooding without end. It's a tedious task I don't want to do anymore, I've had enough.
The only thing I can say positive about it, is it's hardly the worst flooding I've seen. I've done much worse to myself. But this is still something I can't get away from. And this -2 RESEARCH [jerk, sphincter] is still out-researching the University. Something is wrong with the design here. Maybe it is the simple failure to account for the advantages that Transcend gives in the 1st place. Although, Domai pulling tech out of his ass, is a problem that very much predates either your or my modding.
In my mod, no faction gets a +2 INDUSTRY bonus. I suspect it is overpowered. Domai gets +1, nobody else gets anything.
Post by: bvanevery on December 23, 2018, 02:48:54 AM
MY 2388. Mindworms show up at my industrial boom city again. I blast a big stack of them with artillery killing them all, due to their Spore Launcher dying. I accidentally move my new Drop Hovertank Probe Team unit, not realizing what it is, and waste its turn for dropping somewhere else on Planet. I kill the last land mindworm with a Speeder and get back to base. I shell an Isle into oblivion. Only a single Locust remains as far as I see, and that's not a threat. I think this made me a lot of money, as I now have 1115 credits. That said, I'm making 137 credits/turn now, so it may not be entirely responsible for my wealth.
I complete a Conventional Missile prototype. A passing Drone ship seems interested in landing on my shores next turn, so I blow it up. Except, as I'm trying to move north from my capitol, I hit an undetected Pirate Sealurk! Well, damn. I certainly have the forces to repel any ground invasion, but I haven't made any units lately to take a mere Transport out. Frankly this is the 1st one I've seen, whole game. It's carrying some armor 6 and armor 8 units, this is not a current tech deposition. I put a Cruiser Probe Team in front of one my cities, so that the Marine on the Transport cannot directly attack it. They'll have to land on some fungus, and then I'll trivially wipe them out with mindworms.
I rush a Pressure Dome in my capitol. Delays, delays, delays. Domai only needs 10 turns to complete the Space Elevator. However he's building it at U.N. Headquarters, which is seaside facing me. It's actually pretty easy to get a Cruiser Probe Team over there, if nobody is patrolling. Succeeding specifically at taking out the project in production, is another matter. I need more teams, quick. However I'd like them not to suck. This turn I will build a Naval Yard. Not exactly a crime to have something sea facing over here.
I make 4 energy from fungus squares now. Not sure what I discovered that allowed that, but I'll take it. Fungal pops definitely don't hurt me.
MY 2389. Domai begins the Singularity Inductor, making me think this tech tree progression is pretty much broken. I suppose he'll Transcend soon? Things are still sinking, rivers are still flooding, forests that I just put down got wiped out by rivers again. It's a drag. Some cities somewhere else completely sank this year. It's a serious flooding apocalypse, even if it's far from the worst I've seen in a game. This game has been all about the Domai and not about me.
The Naval Yard was !@#$ supposed to take 1 turn to build, but because of !#$#! flooding, it's 2 minerals shy of completion. So my probe team response is delayed yet again. Pissing and moaning about this, does remind me that I did make a drop probe team before though, and that I put it on Hold last turn. I think I need something to eat, I'm not thinking straight. [break] A few bites of lasagna later...
pretty sneaky sis |
I drop my team in the middle of a dead zone in Domai's empire. A leftover from when he took over most of the Peacekeepers. I hope he isn't flying any planes around. I bet the risk of running into ground troops is pretty minimal.
You know, if he completes this Singularity Inductor, the flooding is going to get worse all over again. It's supposed to mitigate the eco-damage, but I think in the real world, it creates far more pollution than it cleans up.
I'm realizing that if the AI had any brains, several factions could have drop podded all over me. Minus my Aerospace Complex defenses, of course. Fortunately the AI is brainless.
dont drown me bro |
MY 2390. I realize I only have 13 Super Formers now. I used to have 20. I think I must have lost some of them to the "flooded river plain" bug. This is when a river plain cannot have any terrain improvements put on it during a flood, and it also kills any units that end their turn on the river. I'm taking a screenshot to see if anyone dies next turn.
I research Centauri Genetics, making the Pholus Mutagen available at last. At first, I switch from the Hunter-Seeker Algorithm to that. Then I see it's going to be such a severe waste of previous production, that I just can't conscience it. I switch to the Space Elevator, accepting this isn't going to get built in my capitol, that I don't have the luxury of that kind of time. Not unless the probe teams manage to do some good work. I'm still trying to get a Covert Ops Center done, so I just don't think intervention is going to happen.
My drop probe team was not discovered. It even healed, which must be from the Nano Factory. 5 turns until the Space Elevator. The city has piles of facilities and is fairly happy, with 4 Transcendi and 2 Drones. With all the yuppies in this city, I don't see Drone Riots doing any good. Domai's government is Democratic Free Market only, so no PROBE bonuses. Domai's credit reserve is massive, 1963 credits. Mine isn't shabby, 1427. The city is size 16 and it's 14 squares from his capitol.
Can I buy this city? Can I buy it if I change my government to something more probe team aggressive? Unfortunately with my faction's -2 PROBE penalty, and inability to go Fundamentalist, the best I can muster with Thought Control is -1 PROBE. Well, that might not actually matter, I don't think that's a term in the cost equation. It's Domai's PROBE rating that matters not mine. Instead of trying to figure it out, let's just walk up to the base, save the game, try the action, and see what it would cost. 3544 credits. Figured.
I attack the Space Elevator specifically with a 75% chance of success, and remarkably, take it out! Surprisingly, the team survives and is promoted to Veteran. Ok, now I can build the thing in my capitol. I guess I'll just keep building the HSA where it is, as I don't want to waste all that production. I'll start the Pholus Mutagen elsewhere. It's a cheap project by the standards of this late stage of the game.
I've got 2 Cruiser Probe Teams in the water, and have ended my turn with Domai's Isles near both of them. Might be kissing that fleet goodbye. Stealing Domai's tech may fall to the drop team. I rush the Covert Ops Center as I'm going to need more teams. The industrial boom is over, but it's still a high production city.
Post by: bvanevery on December 23, 2018, 04:25:23 AM
I'm thinking it's not time to disrupt another Secret Project yet. How about stealing credits? Morgan is rich! We're still at war and he's still ignoring my transmissions. Problem is, Morgan Industries is a waterworld now. I'd need a Drop Marine team, which I don't have, and a way to protect it from aircraft. Assuming an Aerospace Complex isn't covering his capitol... mercifully, he has none. Hasn't been doing anywhere near as well as Domai, the graph says he's no stronger than I am. And frankly, the graph is lying. I'm in a way better position than he is, with many Secret Projects, and actual land with substantial bases. He's a wreck!
A Stasis Drop Transport is not cheap, and I don't have a prototype of that armor yet. My capitol with the Skunkworks is busy with the Space Elevator. I'm building a Stasis Coastal in another city just to get it up and running, but it will take 5 turns. A Drop Transport is also a one way trip, by itself. It would take a Drop Former building an airbase to get back into orbit. What does that cost? I'm running out of unit designs yet again. Well, they're still vulnerable, I need an AAA unit. AAA is unpleasantly expensive in this mod, it costs 2 and is only +50%. Antimatter drop? The math on producing this stuff isn't adding up. For the same expenditures, I think I'm better off just making Supply Crawlers to build my SPs faster.
We shall try stealing money from Domai's capitol, using the existing Drop unit. The good thing about Drop probe teams, is if they live through the experience, they find their own way home.
MY 2392. Lal lamely declares war on me. As if he can do anything with Domai having all but destroyed him. The land link to his backyard doesn't even exist anymore. I meet Santiago at sea and she lamely declares war on me as well. If her Sealurk is as bad as others she won't be a threat though.
I steal the Singularity Inductor tech. Boy I thought some of these other projects were expensive, that one is 1800! That's double the useless HSA. Think I'll let Domai rock on with that one for awhile, then terminate it.
Domai does send a slow infantry unit to check out my Drop team, but he doesn't attack. His bad. I steal... 24 credits??? I've been ripped off! Ok, somehow he spent some money, he's only got 794 credits now. But that's still too low. Well, my team survived and is now Commando. Is it possible that my -6 PROBE rating, actually triggers a bug that makes my success more likely? I'm going to build more of these Drop probes as they seem to be doing the job.
In all this time, I've never made units with Non-Lethal Methods. I've not tried to pop boom either. Felt too under the gun the whole time. What if it was a strategic mistake, and the whole game would have been different if I just paid the painful price of pop booming in this mod? Hard to say, but no question I've been deterred.
MY 2393. Morgan and Domai both start the HSA. I haven't saved it up this long to let them have it. I send a Supply 99 over there and that goose is cooked.
I wonder how much money I can get out of a large but distant Morganite city? Let's find out, nothing better to do. I steal... 134 credits and my Cruiser team survives. That's ok. Not really worth the mouseclicks to sail all the way there, but I was in the 'hood.
Rivers change course again, forests are gone again, and this time I know I lost 7 Formers somehow. <SIGH> Yes, I'm serious Tim, this forced global warming stuff is tedious. This doesn't feel like a wargame, it feels like a marginal survival game.
I begin a campaign of general sabotage in Domai's Secret Project Cities. I lose a Drop team. More will come! I actually have enough money to buy the Space Elevator this turn, so I do it.
Post by: bvanevery on December 23, 2018, 05:36:15 AM
MY 2397. Domai has started wandering around all sorts of units in that interior hole I was using to land my probe teams. They killed one unit outright. Another unit could not get to the capitol and had to take pot luck in a small city somewhere else. Domai is only 3 turns away from completing the Singularity Inductor. So I guess flooding is not going to end. I don't have any control over him.
I've started to build Stasis Drop Transports for an orbital invasion. I will need a lot of units so I can build an Airbase to get in and out of orbit. I also completed the Pholus Mutagen, which should give me some pretty deadly indigenous life. Oh yeah, keep forgetting the Manifold Nexus. I'm building Trance Sea Formers to make my water worth more.
I'm tired. I'm bagging it for today. 12:30 AM.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 23, 2018, 11:56:24 AM
QuoteSort of next few level beyond Transcend. So if you feel it difficult - try switching to lower level.Heracy! Into the Punishment Sphere with you. Seriously, if you've modded things to be unwinnable on Transcend, your design is a failure.
I didn't say it is unwinnable. It is hard to the level where you call it a drag and constant thinking every turn. This is not unwinnable like Civ 3 on Deity.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 23, 2018, 11:58:40 AM
Tools in the game that did give me an ability to react, like Launch Solar Shade, you took away from me.
Sorry. I am not following what did I do and how.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 23, 2018, 12:04:01 PM
"flooded river plain" bug.
Is it a known bug? I've never heard of it before. Is it a new type of terrain?
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 23, 2018, 12:13:37 PM
I didn't do anything purposefully to induce flooding in my mod. Even if it happens inherently due to some changes it is easier to fix by tuning frequency of global warming in txt.
I don't think INDUSTRY affects global warming directly if at all. It only lets you build things faster.
Post by: Geo on December 23, 2018, 12:57:43 PM
"flooded river plain" bug.
Is it a known bug? I've never heard of it before. Is it a new type of terrain?
It is a known bug.
Post by: bvanevery on December 23, 2018, 02:05:19 PM
I didn't say it is unwinnable. It is hard to the level where you call it a drag and constant thinking every turn.
There's a big difference between constant thinking, and constant pickiness and tedium. Global flooding for this long is a drag. I am certain of that. I'm not exactly certain how your mod caused it, but I think it did, and that the answer is in your SE table. You have some awfully big numbers in there.
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I don't think INDUSTRY affects global warming directly if at all. It only lets you build things faster.
I suspect that you are giving egregiously large INDUSTRY bonuses, that the upper end of the dynamic range of this in the SE table is way too high. Transcend already gives the equivalent of a +5 INDUSTRY bonus IIRC. Add Domai's inherent +2 INDUSTRY bonus, and I think you get a faction that just steamrollers everything into oblivion, nothing anyone can do about it. He's incapable of going Green, so he goes Free Market and builds whatever factory gewgaws, poisoning Planet. He does all of this so fast, so overpowered, that the game just melts.
Morgan has also been noted as a contributor to Global Warming, but he didn't have anywhere near the empire size.
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This is not unwinnable like Civ 3 on Deity.
BTW I've beaten Civ3 on Deity plenty of times. I didn't rage quit and destroy my copy of Civ3 because of AI difficulty. It was because of having to conquer the same @#$# cities twice, due to never ending revolts. The game did nothing but exacerbate the tedium of the genre, making piles of units in all the continents, pretty much punishing you any time you had the temerity to want to actually win the game.
Sorry. I am not following what did I do and how.
As far as "taking away tools", what you did is make space flight come very, very late in the game. I still have not learned Advanced Space Flight, which is what lets you propose Launch Solar Shade. You bottlenecked it with Centauri Genetics, which I only just learned in yesterday's play sessions. I am the RESEARCH faction with every kind of Lab built in my cities!
A secondary thing you did, is make mag tubes come really really late. By the time I actually got a land bridge connected to Domai, he had already taken over half of the largest land mass in the game. He had already built incredible piles of stuff, various factories presumed among them. Substantial global flooding happened mere turns after I got the rail done and actually broke the link I'd made to his continent. I did not have the production to pursue an offensive in the face of all the global warming stuff, I had to buoy my lands.
Post by: bvanevery on December 23, 2018, 02:34:04 PM
I realize that the Manifold Nexus is actually a water square now. I bet I have to actually control the ocean square it rests on, to get the +1 PLANET. Nobody currently controls that ocean square. I believe I can do it from land adjacent to the square, but I also think that land is going to sink soon. I need it to remain a land base so that I can pour troops in via orbital insertions. This would be an excellent place to use a Tectonic Missile, if only they weren't so prohibitively expensive. 17 turns to make one of those. Not remotely worth it compared to orbital insertion of Formers.
A Drop Stasis AAA Garrison is way too expensive to make, 180 minerals. The minimum I need is a colony pod, an AAA to protect the new city, a Former to raise land, an AAA to protect that, and enough Drop to get over there. A Drop Colony Pod isn't that expensive of a unit, only 81 minerals. However it takes 3 turns instead of 2 to complete. An infantry chassis Drop Former isn't so bad, only 63 minerals. I don't need all of my Drop Transports to be armored, just the ones that initially land in a bad place. I will just bring a "tough" unit along for a garrison, as I don't have time to wait for the AAA to get done. In fact, I think I'm better off stacking the place with more units at first, rather than an AAA unit, so I
production for orbital warfare |
I change my production around and decide upon a Stasis Drop Transport already in production, 3 unarmored Drop Transports, and an ordinary Colony Pod. These will all take 2 turns to complete. I'm realizing that this might also be a better tactic in general than bothering to bring Formers to make an Airbase somewhere. Drop a Colony Pod with defensive units, build a new city, go back into orbit immediately. It's going to be about how many units I can drop on a given turn. A Psi Gate might help at this point too, but I forget what the rules are on sending or receiving through a gate. You're either limited to 1 unit sent out, or 1 sent in, or both.
MY 2398. My rail network is all broken up once again, inhibiting my ability to react to a Spartan Sealurk that has shown up near my Sea Former. This is a secondary motivation for Psi Gates. I will start building them everywhere. I want as strong a linkage to the Manifold Nexus as I can get.
planetfall at the Nexus |
MY 2399. My rails are so chopped up, that I can't bring my strongest defensive units with me to the landing site. That one Drop Stasis unit is going to have to do as the primary defense. Almost all my cities are making Psi Gates. Never thought those were useful... but I've never been through global flooding this late in the game before either. When a flood is self-inflicted, usually other bad things are happening. Like Locusts and Isles overrunning your bases, or nukes getting dropped on your head.
Post by: bvanevery on December 23, 2018, 03:58:13 PM
linking to civilization |
MY 2400. I don't remember a game going this many turns in, well, forever. Must be due to global flooding, only having 9 cities, and the stupendous cost of the Secret Projects I've built. If the default end of game year is in effect, then I don't have that long to wrap this up. I think in the worst case, if I can still stand to keep going, I will just change the end year. I think that's only fair considering how expensive all the Secret Projects have been.
linking to civilization |
Domai flew a Tachyon Penetrator up to my stack, but declined to attack. He may have not had more planes to do more damage. I will try to take root faster than he can do anything about it.
why not Isles and Sealurks |
Unfortunately, controlling a submerged Manifold Nexus is worthless. I hope it reconstitutes when I raise the land. If it's actually destroyed, well that would be disappointing.
I rush all Psi Gates. Domai has completed the Singularity Inductor and is starting on the Bulk Matter Transmitter. I expect worse flooding. Bases that don't have Pressure Domes will soon build them.
MY 2401. 2 bases became sea bases. Fortunately, they had Pressure Domes from awhile back. I note that even at this late point in the game, I still don't know Advanced Spaceflight and cannot propose to Launch Solar Shade. That's messed up.
Post by: bvanevery on December 23, 2018, 04:44:21 PM
swimming or crawling |
MY 2402. I'm made to notice that Sealurks basically don't cost anything. They're cheaper than Mindworms, and I'm made to wonder why. The difference in cost is noticeable even in a high production city, 27 minerals. No wonder all the factions are making so many Sealurks, it's a bargain basement. Well I'm following suit, using my Temple of Planet cities. They come out as Demon Boils! If it weren't for the Neural Amplifier, this would be an antidote to Domai on the water. At least I can clear my waters of anyone else. Unfortunately they're also darned slow, so controlling my own waters is all that's likely to get done.
Stargate Atlantis |
Both the sending and receiving gate get blocked up. This means I can only send 1 unit per turn to the Nexus. That can be a Cruiser Transport carrying 4 units however.
groan |
MY 2403. Here I am, subjected to mindworms. Haven't done anything new, haven't built any factories since the stone ages. That city has a Tree Farm, a Hybrid Forest, a Centauri Preserve, and a Temple of Planet in it. It's doing 0 eco-damage! Meanwhile Domai sits around building Singularity Inductors and Bulk Matter Transmitters and does almost no eco-damage. I think he's cheating. Although, he hasn't actually completed the BMT yet. Maybe that will finally be his undoing? I've experienced hordes of mindworms when the BMT spikes one's minerals. But he'll probably cheat and not be affected by it.
reinforcements |
Well that's interesting, I just captured 8 mindworms. Unfortunately they're all supported by my city, but that's still a lot of free production. I'll stash them in various other cities for a rainy day.
wants to drown us all |
I finally learn Advanced Spaceflight. I propose to Launch Solar Shade. Domai vetoes it. Some other factions are surprisingly opposed as well. Maybe they're all Republicans with holdings in fossil fuel companies. Couldn't you see Mr. [Sleezebag] in this world? "It's all a conspiracy invented by the Chinese."
I could make Orbital Power Transmitters now. I could forget about invasion and just try to outgrow Domai. I bet he doesn't have a clue about how to pop boom, since it's so difficult in this mod. Problem: I'd have to go Democratic Planned. I'd lose some of my Manifold Harmonics bonus, and I'd be reduced to -1 POLICE. I guess those aren't dealbreakers, but I'll wait until I see whether raising the Manifold Nexus makes it functional again or not.
Also what about the Cloning Vats? Are they even in this game? Yes, with Biomachinery. I have the prereqs, Advanced Spaceflight was one of them. This might even be the next tech I discover. Best to wait 7 years then build the crap out of it. Meanwhile, Domai has got a tech I don't have, Sentient Econometrics. Time to steal. I'm also belatedly remembering I have 1 Artifact from the stone ages. After I steal, it's time to use it.
Post by: bvanevery on December 23, 2018, 05:53:53 PM
so sad |
MY 2405. The Manifold Nexus, best I can tell, has been destroyed by flooding. I'll check another saved game to see if the label for the Nexus is just positioned somewhere I wouldn't have expected. I don't think I'm willing to go to +0 PLANET in these difficult times. I will try to beat Domai to the Cloning Vats. Meanwhile I am starting to build Orbital Power Transmitters.
songs I used to know |
Here's what it looked like in MY 2286. I got the right place, it's just been destroyed by flooding. No recovery. Just to be sure, I march a land unit into the Nexus square to see if I get any message about it. Nope, nothing. It's toast.
It's 1 PM. I'm going to go do other things with my life.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 23, 2018, 05:58:47 PM
QuoteI don't think INDUSTRY affects global warming directly if at all. It only lets you build things faster.
I suspect that you are giving egregiously large INDUSTRY bonuses, that the upper end of the dynamic range of this in the SE table is way too high. Transcend already gives the equivalent of a +5 INDUSTRY bonus IIRC. Add Domai's inherent +2 INDUSTRY bonus, and I think you get a faction that just steamrollers everything into oblivion, nothing anyone can do about it. He's incapable of going Green, so he goes Free Market and builds whatever factory gewgaws, poisoning Planet. He does all of this so fast, so overpowered, that the game just melts.
Few game facts. Transcend gives the equivalent of +3 INDUSTRY to AI but with quirk. The quirk is that their first +1 INDUSTRY doesn't apply! I checked this in scenario editor not in the game but I believe it should work identical. Next thing is that bonus are capped at whatever listed in game help. That is -3 to +5 INDUSTRY. I.e. AI never gets more than +5 INDUSTRY = twice as fast production. And they need at least +3 INDUSTRY to get there. That is fast all right but not infinitely fast.
Once more the industry bonus itself does not affect global warming at all. It just allow more things to have. The only tiny connection could be building factories faster and thus having them a little bit earlier. You still cannot have them until you discover them. I disagree that INDUSTRY or anything in SE at all affects global warming.
Your drones may have huge negative PLANET bonus and boost their ecology damage by that. However, this is not a SE dependent. It is their choice.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 23, 2018, 06:04:37 PM
Sorry. I am not following what did I do and how.
As far as "taking away tools", what you did is make space flight come very, very late in the game. I still have not learned Advanced Space Flight, which is what lets you propose Launch Solar Shade.
Ah, this one! Yes, I didn't pay attention to proposals appearance time yet. Can as well do now. Thank you for noting.
By the way, I am not talking about technology appearance only about feature appearance as technologies and features can be easily reassigned. Main Advanced Space Flight association is Orbital power transmitter and I moved it at the very end as you did too.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 23, 2018, 06:08:36 PM
A secondary thing you did, is make mag tubes come really really late.
Hmm. They come at ~60% through research tree. You think it's late? I can move them, of course, easily. But where do you want to put them? At 40%?
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 23, 2018, 06:19:26 PM
These models have additional +1 TALENT that is not visible on a SE screen:
Fundamentalist
Planned
Thought Control
Other than that I tried to do minimal modification to make choices in category beneficial in different time periods or in different situations. So no two choices in same category give same effect always.
Post by: bvanevery on December 23, 2018, 06:23:13 PM
Hmm. They come at ~60% through research tree. You think it's late?
I know it is ridiculously late. Past the 1st time of being challenged to not have them available, this is an extremely tedious, awful thing to do to the game. You may play on Standard maps all the time, but anyone who plays on Huge or larger, needs to get units across the map somehow. It is a complete drag to have to push them manually by roads or transports. That's why I didn't even get into physical contact with Domai for so long. He got to stomp the biggest land mass of the game before it was even reasonable for me to get to him.
The other exacerbating factor is the extreme cost of Secret Projects. That didn't leave me with resources for troops. Domai is stomping the big continent the whole time. And if I had just let him build the SPs instead, I think it may have been worse. He didn't get the Cloudbase Academy or the Cyborg Factory, for instance. The Peacekeepers got the Maritime Control Center, couldn't do anything about it, and that's another disincentive to make an invasion. Domai eventually took that from them.
Quote
I can move them, of course, easily. But where do you want to put them? At 40%?
I put them on Tier 2, the beginning of the game, because I'm pro rails. That doesn't seem to be your style.
Post by: bvanevery on December 23, 2018, 06:40:35 PM
These models have additional +1 TALENT that is not visible on a SE screen:
Fundamentalist
Planned
Thought Control
Why are you giving away so many benefits to these choices?
Take Planned for instance, you propose to give 4 benefits and 3 penalties. That's assuming TALENT should even be counted as 1 benefit, I think it's really worth more like 2. Regardless, Free Market has 2 benefits and 7 penalties, and Green has 4 benefits and 6 penalties. This is not balanced. Planned is clearly and obviously the best choice. And why on Earth is Planned going to now become anti-RESEARCH?
I also don't get why Knowledge has to lose ECONOMY. Or why Eudaimonia has to lose EFFICIENCY and be completely incapable of MORALE.
I am noticing that in my current game, the AI thinks your version of Eudaimonia is so bad, that the Drones refuse to choose it! Even though it is their compulsion to choose it, the thing they lecture everyone else about doing. They themselves are preferring to stay at None. Think of the Drone Children!
Post by: bvanevery on December 23, 2018, 06:49:38 PM
Main Advanced Space Flight association is Orbital power transmitter and I moved it at the very end as you did too.
My actual sequence is Orbital Spaceflight --> Advanced Spaceflight --> Global Energy Theory which gives the Orbital Power Transmitter. These come at Tier 6, 7, and 8 respectively. There are vastly long differences of time between those Tiers in my tree, because unlike yours, I've got everything stacked densely with 2 prereqs from the beginning of the game.
Yes it takes a long time to get Advanced Spaceflight in my mod. The Cloudbase Academy comes then, one of the known overpowered SPs. It's meant to come late and be expensive. But for whatever reasons, in all the testing I've done, I've never seen the Free Drones flood the whole planet. There is something very different about your Drones, and the obvious culprit is an overwhelming INDUSTRY bonus. In my mod I nerfed the Drones, they only get +1 INDUSTRY for their faction. There is no bonanza of easy, cheap INDUSTRY bonuses available either.
Another possible factor is your Drones compulsively pursue INDUSTRY as a secondary concern, like in the stock game. Mine don't. I left it up to the AI to decide whether more INDUSTRY is needed, since Transcend is giving the equivalent of +3 INDUSTRY anyways.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 23, 2018, 06:54:30 PM
Hmm. They come at ~60% through research tree. You think it's late?
I know it is ridiculously late. Past the 1st time of being challenged to not have them available, this is an extremely tedious, awful thing to do to the game. You may play on Standard maps all the time, but anyone who plays on Huge or larger, needs to get units across the map somehow. It is a complete drag to have to push them manually by roads or transports. That's why I didn't even get into physical contact with Domai for so long. He got to stomp the biggest land mass of the game before it was even reasonable for me to get to him.
The other exacerbating factor is the extreme cost of Secret Projects. That didn't leave me with resources for troops. Domai is stomping the big continent the whole time. And if I had just let him build the SPs instead, I think it may have been worse. He didn't get the Cloudbase Academy or the Cyborg Factory, for instance. The Peacekeepers got the Maritime Control Center, couldn't do anything about it, and that's another disincentive to make an invasion. Domai eventually took that from them.QuoteI can move them, of course, easily. But where do you want to put them? At 40%?
I put them on Tier 2, the beginning of the game, because I'm pro rails. That doesn't seem to be your style.
I don't care much about my style.
:)
I am more concerned about changing as little as possible. This is not "new experience" mod. This is "make exiting features shine" mod. You are one of the potential players and I've heard you. However, I feel like moving feature from its 55% original position to 15% position is kinda drastic. Will others accept this?
As for SPs my position stays the same. They are awfully lucrative in the original game. Even with my increased cost they are still so lucrative that factions still race to build them. If you think they put an extreme burden on you that does not worth the cost - don't build them. Let me know if skipping them let you advance faster - I'll reduce the price then.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 23, 2018, 07:07:57 PM
These models have additional +1 TALENT that is not visible on a SE screen:
Fundamentalist
Planned
Thought Control
Why are you giving away so many benefits to these choices?
Take Planned for instance, you propose to give 4 benefits and 3 penalties. That's assuming TALENT should even be counted as 1 benefit, I think it's really worth more like 2. Regardless, Free Market has 2 benefits and 7 penalties, and Green has 4 benefits and 6 penalties. This is not balanced. Planned is clearly and obviously the best choice. And why on Earth is Planned going to now become anti-RESEARCH?
I also don't get why Knowledge has to lose ECONOMY. Or why Eudaimonia has to lose EFFICIENCY and be completely incapable of MORALE.
I am noticing that in my current game, the AI thinks your version of Eudaimonia is so bad, that the Drones refuse to choose it! Even though it is their compulsion to choose it, the thing they lecture everyone else about doing. They themselves are preferring to stay at None. Think of the Drone Children!
Hmm. You keep blaming this mod for a lot of things it didn't claim to do. Specifically, it doesn't target to make AI play better. I would gladly borrow any sensible AI improvements from other mods for generic betterment as long as they do not contradict main idea. So suggest away!
:)
Your criticism of my models is kinda pointless. No offence. You can apply same exactly argument to any variation including original.
For example, you criticize my Free Market for having "2 benefits and 7 penalties" whereas box has 2 benefits and 8 penalties and box Police State has 4 benefits and 2 penalties. Obviously, based solely on your way of looking at it (benefits and penalties), vanilla is even less balanced.
Besides, I never even claimed SE choices is my mainstream in this mod. I'll gladly take any other suggestions.
Post by: bvanevery on December 23, 2018, 07:34:33 PM
Quote
I'm looking at old saved games with the Scenario Editor to see what's going on. In MY 2286 the Manifold Nexus still exists. [..] Possibly, the lack of rails by this point in the game, make Lal's empire completely indefensible.
In MY 2360, Domai has completely stomped almost every Peacekeeper city within an immediate radius of Domai's earlier territory. Lal is left only with scattered, distant, isolated bases in the east. Without rails, density, or basic land quality, they will surely fall in time. Domai is surely Governor by now, although I wish it was easier to check on that explicitly. Size 7 cities and up generally have Genejack Factories and Robotic Assembly Plants. They do substantial if not horrid eco-damage, as Domai is still Fundamentalist Planned Power with a +1 PLANET rating. He's built various facilities that mitigate eco-damage. His INDUSTRY is still at +2, and his production bars are at 6 minerals.
The Manifold Nexus is at 18 meters and is Endangered.
clean coal |
Morgan has managed to do very serious eco-damage in 2 cities. This one is doing 34 damage, another is doing 19. This one looks like there have been multiple fungal pops around it already. Morgan has a Free Market economy and a -3 PLANET rating.
quantum volcano |
Ummm the Data Angels are doing 56 eco-damage on top of Mt. Planet. They've built a quantum converter. That's not good! They might be doing as much eco-damage as all of Domai's empire combined. Wish there was a way to check that easily too. The Data Angels are otherwise a runty faction with no substantial output. Of course they are Free Market with -3 PLANET.
The Spartans are a minor offender, 3 cities with 8..15 eco-damage. They are Fundamentalist Free Market, -2 PLANET.
The Pirates are doing modest eco-damge in some cities, up to 15. They don't have any factories, it's just from their exploitation of their Minerals advantage. They are +0 PLANET.
At this point in the game I, the University, am almost but not quite a saint. I've got a +2 PLANET rating, 1 city that's doing 15 eco-damage, a couple more that are doing 2..4, and I'm building the facilities I should be building to clean this up. None of this came from me, I'm the least offending faction.
Post by: bvanevery on December 23, 2018, 07:46:37 PM
Specifically, it doesn't target to make AI play better.
You surely don't have an agenda to make the AI play substantially worse. Who in their right mind would make a mod to do such a thing, and try to balance combat etc? If someone wanted to make a sandbox that was best for a human to exploit, so that it was always easy to conquer a faction if you wanted to, then I'd get it. Otherwise, -4 MORALE in the SE table has no justification under any circumstances. What are you thinking??
Quote
Your criticism of my models is kinda pointless. No offence. You can apply same exactly argument to any variation including original.
Not to mine since about 1/3 of the way through development, obviously. I adopted a pretty rigid stance on "benefits and penalties" pretty early on. And I never swung the SE in such wild directions like you've been doing.
Quote
For example, you criticize my Free Market for having "2 benefits and 7 penalties" whereas box has 2 benefits and 8 penalties and box Police State has 4 benefits and 2 penalties. Obviously, based solely on your way of looking at it (benefits and penalties), vanilla is even less balanced.
Whether it's less balanced than what you've been up to, I seriously have my doubts. But it is definitely not balanced, with Free Market standing out as the huge offender. Otherwise though, the Politics, Economy, and Values choices do not have any kind of capricious weight to them. The Future Society models were really tilted, but they also came almost at the end of the game, where they can't do that much damage.
Quote
Besides, I never even claimed SE choices is my mainstream in this mod. I'll gladly take any other suggestions.
My suggestion is you put the time into thinking about SE, because it's quite possibly a serious source of "suckage". That said, I have not yet figured out exactly why Domai went nuts with global warming in this game.
Post by: bvanevery on December 23, 2018, 08:36:46 PM
I am more concerned about changing as little as possible. This is not "new experience" mod.
Well that's just not even basically true. You've already changed quite a bit.
Quote
However, I feel like moving feature from its 55% original position to 15% position is kinda drastic. Will others accept this?
Of course they will, I have plenty of downloads of my own mod to prove that, and lots of history of people continuing to download my mod. I work on trying to get yet more people to download it, which is an Art, and not easy. None of that is the issue. The issue is what you personally want regarding rails. What I've told you I don't want, is an almost no rails game. I play Huge maps, I need rails. Perhaps you should try playing some Huge map games and see how it goes for you without rails.
One thing about rails, is being capable of building rails is only the start. You have to have the surplus production to make the Formers to actually build the rails. You've got other jobs you could be doing with those Formers, for awhile at least.
Quote
If you think they put an extreme burden on you that does not worth the cost - don't build them. Let me know if skipping them let you advance faster - I'll reduce the price then.
Problem is, my testing resource is drying up. I can't afford to spend the time on testing your mod at this level, over and over again. I have my own mod to consider, and I should be moving on with actual programming of a new game, not modding. Some of these draconian SP prices, I definitely don't agree with. The AI seems to be buffed enough to just build them anyways, it's like a giveaway to them. You may need someone else to come along and say, "some of this SP stuff sucks, you've gone overboard".
One thing I am clear on, is you rendered the HSA pointless, by putting Algorithmic Enhancement long before anyone can even start the HSA. You should fix that.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 23, 2018, 10:12:08 PM
I am more concerned about changing as little as possible. This is not "new experience" mod.
Well that's just not even basically true. You've already changed quite a bit.QuoteHowever, I feel like moving feature from its 55% original position to 15% position is kinda drastic. Will others accept this?
Of course they will, I have plenty of downloads of my own mod to prove that, and lots of history of people continuing to download my mod. I work on trying to get yet more people to download it, which is an Art, and not easy. None of that is the issue. The issue is what you personally want regarding rails. What I've told you I don't want, is an almost no rails game. I play Huge maps, I need rails. Perhaps you should try playing some Huge map games and see how it goes for you without rails.
One thing about rails, is being capable of building rails is only the start. You have to have the surplus production to make the Formers to actually build the rails. You've got other jobs you could be doing with those Formers, for awhile at least.QuoteIf you think they put an extreme burden on you that does not worth the cost - don't build them. Let me know if skipping them let you advance faster - I'll reduce the price then.
Problem is, my testing resource is drying up. I can't afford to spend the time on testing your mod at this level, over and over again. I have my own mod to consider, and I should be moving on with actual programming of a new game, not modding. Some of these draconian SP prices, I definitely don't agree with. The AI seems to be buffed enough to just build them anyways, it's like a giveaway to them. You may need someone else to come along and say, "some of this SP stuff sucks, you've gone overboard".
One thing I am clear on, is you rendered the HSA pointless, by putting Algorithmic Enhancement long before anyone can even start the HSA. You should fix that.
Put HSA at the middle and made it cheaper.
Put MagTubes to level 4, 30%. Cannot move it earlier. I hope this should be right time when empire growths big.
Post by: bvanevery on December 23, 2018, 11:20:25 PM
First thing I notice, is that Biomachinery has different prereqs. It's no longer the next tech in the tree for me. I need Sentient Econometrics, and then String Resonance. Not sure how this changes my game plan. I of course will steal as before. I guess play the Artifact as before, but accept that this won't get me to where I need to be.
MY 2406. The Drones are going to instantaneously complete the Nethack Terminus, using a spare copy of the Bulk Matter Transmitter. Its position has been moved in the tech tree. Not an option for me as I wasn't working on any SP. The BMT itself will be completed in 2 turns. I won't be able to sabotage it, as I lost 3 Cruiser teams between last turn and this. My 4th team stole Sentient Econometrics, making it past a security lock with 88% chance of success, but that also sent it back home. Just as well because if it kept going, it would have died. Lotta Sealurks.
4 turns until my next tech. I think I'll wait until then to pop my Artifact. Realizing that I could use a few Drop Transports and Mindworms to go grab the remaining Artifacts on land. Sounds like a plan, as I'm not ready for a full on invasion yet anyways. Not sure trying to do an orbital invasion would even work. I think there may be fungal towers on some of these pods, as on the island with the most pods, I have great difficulty finding a landing site. At last I drop onto 3 different islands.
I am noticing that the new Green SE choice is egregiously unfair to factions that are supposed to be PLANET friendly. -3 SUPPORT and -3 GROWTH ? That's pretty ridiculous. The Gaians have to go Green, it's their compulsion. I predict they will immediately die in any game they're in now. They'll either go Green and completely stagnate, or they'll decline and stay at Simple Economy, putting them at a disadvantage compared to other factions. The stock Cult of Planet will be similarly disadvantaged.
Now in my case, I was only doing Green because the Manifold Harmonics gave me a bonus for it. I doubt these penalties are worth the bonus, especially the -3 GROWTH zero population growth. I certainly couldn't have done that this game if I had started with version 1.4 instead of 1.3. I change from Green to Simple, because Planned will impede my RESEARCH and I don't want an EFFIC penalty either. This changes fungus from 2-3-4 to 1-2-4.
MY 2407. The new Cybernetic gives +2 PLANET +2 RESEARCH +1 EFFIC -3 POLICE. Due to my Manifold Harmonics bonus, it's a much better deal for me than Thought Control, which now has a -3 SUPPORT penalty. I can't believe anyone will ever take Eudaimonic with its -4 MORALE penalty. I switch to Cybernetic, gaining an excessive +7 RESEARCH. I'll be ditching Knowledge next turn I think.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 23, 2018, 11:44:05 PM
1.4 definitely has a better installation regime. I trivially throw all the files on top of my existing installation. Don't know if you'll stick with the title, but it's a better working title than "Right Time". Noticed the mod_changes.txt, that's helpful. Can't test the effect of any of this on faction growth this late in my game, but I haven't really done combat yet. Domai and I might be headed for a big blowout, it depends on what I choose to do.
First thing I notice, is that Biomachinery has different prereqs. It's no longer the next tech in the tree for me. I need Sentient Econometrics, and then String Resonance. Not sure how this changes my game plan. I of course will steal as before. I guess play the Artifact as before, but accept that this won't get me to where I need to be.
I don't recommend to swap version in the middle of the game. I.e. load saved game on top of the different version. I tried this and noticed some inconsistencies. Looks like game sucks some changes and makes them permanent for this save so changes in txt doesn't have effect on it. That and the mere fact that tech tree changed and you will have a mess in your research.
Post by: bvanevery on December 24, 2018, 12:51:28 AM
I don't recommend to swap version in the middle of the game.
Of course it is not ideal, but I'm not going to play a fresh game of 1.4. I don't have the time. At least combat stuff can be observed in the endgame, if I even stand a chance against Domai at this point. Also, I can already see that the new SE table has some serious flaws.
MY 2408. Domai completes the Bulk Matter Transmitter. He also researches Digital Sentience and begins the Network Backbone. It costs 1000 and yet he only needs 7 turns to complete it. If Domai gets far enough to Transcend, I'm doubting I can do anything about it. He is a monster.
Domai takes a Pirate base that's facing my home waters, that I once owned myself. This makes it very convenient to steal Digital Sentience from him. I actually have 3000 cash, so I could possibly get the Network Backbone myself. It's not going to have much use for research at this point, but it removes the negative effects of Cybernetic.
I switch from Knowledge to Survival, lowering my RESEARCH to +4. I don't want a -2 INDUSTRY penalty for Power. I don't want -3 MORALE for Wealth.
MY 2409. Santiago shows up with a stack of 6 or 8 Sealurks, I forget how many. Some turns ago, I took away a base of hers that she put in my home waters. She wants bribe money, which of course I don't give her. She's weak, and I wouldn't buy her even if she was strong. I have 2 Trance Sea Formers, she attacks them, and all her Sealurks die. My units get down to 60% wounds, but they live. They limp 2 squares into port to heal.
I learn Self-Aware Machines. I start the Self-Aware Colony in a low production city. I use a Supply Crawler that's been convoying a few energy since forever, I disband a bunch of early game units, and I spend a huge pile of cash to rush the Network Backbone. I cash my Artifact and gain String Resonance.
MY 2410. My Cruiser teams keep getting destroyed by Domai's Sealurks, so I change to a Trance Cruiser Probe Team design, Algorithmically Enhanced. They will take 2 turns to make instead of 1, but they may actually reach their targets and clear the sea of Sealurks.
With the Network Backbone, I no longer have a POLICE penalty from Cybernetic. I drop Police State in favor of Frontier, in order to raise my EFFIC from -1 to +1. I'm not sure how much good that will do me. My credits/turn goes up slightly. POLICE drops to +0 because I have the Aesthetic Virtues. I never built any Non-Lethal units, I've never had time. I don't want Democratic, either for the -3 SUPPORT or for the -1 PROBE.
MY 2411. Why make the Self-Aware Colony so godawful expensive? It doesn't do that much.
Post by: bvanevery on December 24, 2018, 02:57:10 AM
Domai has started building a lot of satellites, seriously making me wonder if I can catch him. I guess it depends on whether the AI figures out how to pop boom or not.
MY 2417. Domai starts shooting at my satellites. I start building an Orbital Defense Pod in 1 city. I hope it is enough.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 24, 2018, 03:13:17 AM
MY 2408. Domai completes the Bulk Matter Transmitter. He also researches Digital Sentience and begins the Network Backbone. It costs 1000 and yet he only needs 7 turns to complete it. If Domai gets far enough to Transcend, I'm doubting I can do anything about it. He is a monster.
Wow. Really? Even if he has +5 INDUSTRY which halves cost then it should have something 70 base production. I guess this is achievable with all multiplier facilities but still amazing. Well, isn't it an argument for SP cost increase? With original one it would finish it in 3-4.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 24, 2018, 03:15:10 AM
MY 2409. Santiago shows up with a stack of 6 or 8 Sealurks, I forget how many.
So AI does sometimes produce native in large quantities for battle. Good to know.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 24, 2018, 03:18:56 AM
MY 2411. Why make the Self-Aware Colony so godawful expensive? It doesn't do that much.
It halves maintenance. Assuming you spend about 50% of energy on maintenance in later game then you just get 25% of you budget free! It's like an equivalent of 50% research speed up if you can channel them there.
Did you build it? If yes, did you see cash flow increase?
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 24, 2018, 03:21:20 AM
I've created new topic for the mod versions specifically. Thank you for help in early testing!
Post by: bvanevery on December 24, 2018, 03:25:12 AM
It's like an equivalent of 50% research speed up if you can channel them there.
It's almost at the end of the tech tree, who the F cares about research anymore?
Quote
Did you build it? If yes, did you see cash flow increase?
No, of course not. A little bit of cash can't save me now. The Cloning Vats might. Or might not.
Post by: bvanevery on December 24, 2018, 03:30:51 AM
Well, isn't it an argument for SP cost increase? With original one it would finish it in 3-4.
The reason Domai can do any of this at all, is you made these SPs so back breakingly expensive for a human player on Transcend, who doesn't have any buffs, that you severely favor the AI factions with their inherent INDUSTRY bonuses. You gave them the whole freakin' game. Ordinarily, a RESEARCH faction like myself can get to a SP first, get started on it early, and beat Domai before he starts slugging at it. But I haven't had time to do anything this game except work on SPs, they're that expensive. Even doing that, Domai finished half of them.
Half.
There might be an endgame where I can still win. There might not be, I may be about to summarily lose.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 24, 2018, 03:31:15 AM
It's almost at the end of the tech tree, who the F cares about research anymore?
Well that is the nature of the tree. It has an end. Some thing should be there. Could be as well this one. And yes, if you win game by that point or earlier than it is largely irrelevant what is there and how much it costs.
Post by: bvanevery on December 24, 2018, 03:33:48 AM
So AI does sometimes produce native in large quantities for battle. Good to know.
At the end of the game, with a nearby enemy, to take back a base that used to be hers.
Post by: bvanevery on December 24, 2018, 03:37:29 AM
Well that is the nature of the tree. It has an end. Some thing should be there. Could be as well this one.
Secret Projects don't have to be at the end of the tech tree. For almost all of them, I think that's completely dumb. I did put the Telepathic Matrix at the end, in fact its with Threshold of Transcendence. I think it's the "baby toy" of the game, the thing you do when you want to sandbox indefinitely. I really can't see throwing out the mechanics of making your citizens happy, any earlier than the end of the game. I still don't charge an arm and a leg for it, although it's expensive by my own mod's standards. If you've gotten that far in the game, go ahead and win it already.
My tech tree trails off with the bigger weapons and armors. I consider these to be the boring stuff in the game. I keep them mainly because they have art assets.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 24, 2018, 03:40:12 AM
The reason Domai can do any of this at all, is you made these SPs so back breakingly expensive for a human player on Transcend, who doesn't have any buffs, that you severely favor the AI factions with their inherent INDUSTRY bonuses. You gave them the whole freakin' game. Ordinarily, a RESEARCH faction like myself can get to a SP first, get started on it early, and beat Domai before he starts slugging at it. But I haven't had time to do anything this game except work on SPs, they're that expensive. Even doing that, Domai finished half of them.
Half.
There might be an endgame where I can still win. There might not be, I may be about to summarily lose.
Believe or not, this is a music to my ears. Players constantly complain AI is stupid and weak so that it is easily beaten every single game even on Transcend. Swarm of modders tried to fiddle with rules for the sole purpose to make AI perform better but none prevailed. It seems this simple txt mod reached the point where AI at least doesn't suck every game!
:)
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 24, 2018, 03:43:03 AM
Well that is the nature of the tree. It has an end. Some thing should be there. Could be as well this one.
Secret Projects don't have to be at the end of the tech tree. For almost all of them, I think that's completely dumb. I did put the Telepathic Matrix at the end, in fact its with Threshold of Transcendence. I think it's the "baby toy" of the game, the thing you do when you want to sandbox indefinitely. I really can't see throwing out the mechanics of making your citizens happy, any earlier than the end of the game. I still don't charge an arm and a leg for it, although it's expensive by my own mod's standards. If you've gotten that far in the game, go ahead and win it already.
I completely agree with you. Putting anything at the end of the tree is dumb. Yet something should be there. Look at box game. There are tons of stuff there which is usually never reached.
Post by: bvanevery on December 24, 2018, 03:56:54 AM
Believe or not, this is a music to my ears. Players constantly complain AI is stupid and weak so that it is easily beaten every single game even on Transcend. Swarm of modders tried to fiddle with rules for the sole purpose to make AI perform better but none prevailed. It seems this simple txt mod reached the point where AI at least doesn't suck every game!
:)
You shouldn't be so easily pleased. "AI gets MOAR, human gets nothing" isn't a victory. All you've implemented is an End of the World timer.
I don't think it happened the way I originally thought though. Domai was not quite the eco-damage offender I thought he was. The real problem, I think, is giving multiple kinds of factories fairly early. When AIs get them, they build them. If those AIs are also Free Market tending factions, they do lots of eco-damage. Then the human isn't even playing the same game anymore, they're playing the "always flooding" game.
Maybe someone will enjoy lotsa floods + lotsa expense to build SPs. I don't. A mod needs repeat business from human players, to count as having solved something. I don't know how many takers you'll get, we'll see.
I think you're doing some things in the SE that most people who know the game wouldn't put up with. Dealbreaker territory. Green in 1.4, for sure. Eudaimonia is merely ill-advised because nobody will want to use it.
Post by: bvanevery on December 24, 2018, 04:09:59 AM
I considered atrocities awhile ago. The problem is, he had 2 nukes last I looked, and the capacity to make lots of nukes. Even if genetic warfare was made legal, he'd still be pissed, and he'd retaliate worse than damage I could do to him. I'm only fighting with 9 cities. If even 1 of them is destroyed or taken, the game is over.
MY 2420. I spend 5200 credits to rush the Cloning Vats. I research Secrets of the Manifolds and begin the Telepathic Matrix. I no longer need to research anything as I refuse to win the game by Transcending. I still want my Manifold Harmonics bonus in the fungus though. I've even planted fungus deliberately on non-developed, non-rainy terrain.
MY 2421. Having completed the Cloning Vats I switch to Power, as it no longer has any liabilities. I won't change from Cybernetic because I need the +2 PLANET. Green has a -3 INDUSTRY penalty and that's not compatible with trying to get the Telepathic Matrix. Meanwhile, Domai has shot down all my civilian Satellites. I am only making Orbital Defense Pods for the time being. I have a lot of terrestrial food though, due to my proactive homeland strategy the whole game.
MY 2423. Domai destroys a lot of my Trance Cruiser probe teams with his Sealurks. That + the rate at which he rebuilds things I sabotage, makes me feel the effort is completely futile. Next year I'll just make Supply Crawlers to try to get to the Telepathic Matrix that much faster. Meanwhile he hammers me with Orbital Defense Pods. He's got overwhelming production and, more importantly, does not get tired of it. Perhaps, though, the ones I'm launching may be keeping him busy?
MY 2425. Domai begins the Telepathic Matrix at Free Drone Central. He has 143 minerals production and only needs 5 turns to complete. He only does 11 eco-damage in that city, even though he is +0 PLANET. I do 12 eco-damage in a 72 minerals city with +2 PLANET. One might think the Singularity Inductor is the best thing since sliced bread as far as toning down eco-damage. But when I've had those projects, I've had my world totally destroyed in gigantic floods. So I just think the AI gets to cheat. Doesn't have to play the same game with eco-damage and global flooding that I do.
I might actually still beat him to this, if he doesn't pull a zillion supply crawlers out of his ass. It's a bit hard for me to estimate. I change from Simple to Planned economy to boost my INDUSTRY. Remarkably, that enables me to rush the project this turn with 3500 credits.
I fear it will be a Pyrrhic victory, when he almost immediately produces the Voice of Planet and the Ascent to Transcendence.
MY 2426. Domai will complete the Voice of Planet next turn by severe overkill. Aside from my moral objections to Transcend, I resent it when the AI decides when the game is going to end. I had that happen with a runaway Morganite faction once. I may have written an AAR about it. Might have been some kind of giant map game.
I forgot to stop Supply Crawler production earlier. I'll be honest, I don't even know what I'm doing now.
1:30 AM. Canning this for the night.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 24, 2018, 10:23:55 AM
You shouldn't be so easily pleased. "AI gets MOAR, human gets nothing" isn't a victory. All you've implemented is an End of the World timer.
I don't think it happened the way I originally thought though. Domai was not quite the eco-damage offender I thought he was. The real problem, I think, is giving multiple kinds of factories fairly early. When AIs get them, they build them. If those AIs are also Free Market tending factions, they do lots of eco-damage. Then the human isn't even playing the same game anymore, they're playing the "always flooding" game.
Maybe someone will enjoy lotsa floods + lotsa expense to build SPs. I don't. A mod needs repeat business from human players, to count as having solved something. I don't know how many takers you'll get, we'll see.
I think you're doing some things in the SE that most people who know the game wouldn't put up with. Dealbreaker territory. Green in 1.4, for sure. Eudaimonia is merely ill-advised because nobody will want to use it.
These are all different things could be tuned independently: tougher AI, flooding, early factories, pricier SPs, SE choices. The latter three are more or less optional for me. They can easily be altered by people demand.
Just checked how much earlier I put factories for my curiosity. Time placement for Genejack factory, Robotic assembly plant, Quantum converter, Nanoreplicator. Original: 55, 70, 85, 90. Mine: 50, 70, 70, 77. Hmm. Indeed somewhat earlier especially latter ones. Maybe I should move them later.
It's not advanced terraforming either. Original is 31, mine is 38. Even later.
As for SPs I agree some of them were relatively overpriced for their value. Their general price, though, is a moot point. Is it fun building them when they are cheap? If so, why don't we make them much cheaper than in box game? If not then keeping them unchanged just because they are so in boxed game kinda defeats modding idea.
SE is not a problem for me at all. Your feedback was nonconstructive so far, though. Just a flame and not a single proposition. Try one for change. I most likely won't argue.
:)
I don't see what's wrong with Eudaimonic, though. +2 ECONOMY +1 INDUSTRY almost without penalties in peace time. The -1 EFFICIENCY is a penalty all right but with already high EFFICIENCY from other sources it is bearable.
Post by: bvanevery on December 24, 2018, 04:41:28 PM
Just checked how much earlier I put factories for my curiosity. Time placement for Genejack factory, Robotic assembly plant, Quantum converter, Nanoreplicator. Original: 55, 70, 85, 90. Mine: 50, 70, 70, 77. Hmm. Indeed somewhat earlier especially latter ones. Maybe I should move them later.
The 1st kind of factory I got was Robotic Assembly Plant, and that surprised me greatly. I would have expected Genejack Factories to precede it. This makes me suspect that you don't have much of a regime for requiring players to research a bunch of stuff before getting factories. Inadequate prereqs, "here's your factories kids. Now go cut your fingers off."
I don't know how your probability tool works, but I wonder if it actually measures the ease of getting to a specific tech, with specific research foci. When designing the research weights, you can definitely make them so that techs "aim straight at" some result. I did this recently for mindworm techs and the Explore focus. It made a huge difference in how quickly you'd get to mindworms. I turned several (power=4 growth=3) techs into (power=3 growth=4), making them Explore. These pointed in basically a funnel towards mindworms. Compared to how difficult it is to advance with weapons and armor in my tree, I almost wonder if I've broken the game. If I've created "the one true weapons platform, the one true research path". We shall see what testing and feedback I get on that, if any.
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It's not advanced terraforming either. Original is 31, mine is 38. Even later.Morgan made a few boreholes, that was about it. Subjectively, I thought advanced terraforming came much much later than factories.
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Is it fun building them when they are cheap? If so, why don't we make them much cheaper than in box game?
Game design is in the actual writing. Just as creative writing is putting actual sentences on a page. There is no way to say, a priori, whether a smaller or larger cost on something is going to improve it or make it suck. There is only your judgment as a game designer, in the face of a complex system of player experiences.
I say increasing the cost of all SPs to at least 300, and offering SPs no earlier than Tier 3 of the tech tree, improves the game. This cost increase soaks up a lot of Artifacts that are otherwise too plentiful. It creates real player stress trying to compete with the AI for the SPs, while still not dominating everything the player has to do, the way your overwhelming SP costs do. I don't stop at 300, I have a progression up to 600, but that's it.
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SE is not a problem for me at all. Your feedback was nonconstructive so far, though. Just a flame and not a single proposition. Try one for change. I most likely won't argue.
Look, I can't be 'constructive' if we're not even in the same conversation. What you've done with Green in 1.4 is a joke. I suggest you go play your mod with the Gaians. Keep their default research choice, Explore, the whole game so that you can see what the tech tree looks like to the AI. The minute you discover Green, switch to it, and never change it again. That's what the AI would do, because the AI has to follow the compulsion specified in the faction.txt file. Or else the AI will forego a choice and stay at Simple. When it does that, I think it's a sign that the choice is pretty crummy. It also creates the goofy experience of the AI lecturing you about being Green, when the AI itself is not Green.
My prediction is that when you play your Gaians, your civ is going to completely stagnate. Primarily due to zero population growth, secondarily due to very bad industry early on. You have a very growth-poor SE table anyways. If a player is Green, the only early option for mitigating that is Democratic. It only gives +1 Growth, so you'll go from no growth to barely crawling along. And you'll get bad support.
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I don't see what's wrong with Eudaimonic, though. +2 ECONOMY +1 INDUSTRY almost without penalties in peace time.
Ever heard of fighting mindworms bro? Ever heard of being surprise attacked? Being required to be at peace is a pretty serious handicap anyways. One that a low POLICE rating already implements.
Post by: bvanevery on December 24, 2018, 11:59:31 PM
Can I win a nuclear exchange with Domai? Problem: this isn't my mod. Nukes can't just hit anywhere, they have to be launched within range of a target. I don't have a forward position to do it from, nevermind not having the nukes just yet. I can make 1 with all the excess Supply Crawlers I have, which is why I thought of it. Problem: Domai's got an Orbital Defense Pod shield and Flechette Defenses in bases. Things I never had time to build.
I found where his 2 nukes are positioned. I thought about trying to capture the cities they're in. Problem is, I don't seem to have any ability to intervene on his continent at all. I keep trying to find a landing zone for Drop Transports, and there are none. He must have many units wandering around in his interior now.
My original land linkage to Domai's continent, has long since been decimated by floods. I don't have the fleet of Formers I used to, to quickly build a new one. I could try to do it anyways, see if I can build Formers fast enough to take over his capitol with ground troops. Seems like a stretch, but the more I think about it, the more viable it seems compared to the alternatives.
Some Tectonic Missiles could bridge the gap rapidly... if only they had larger than Fission reactors. Also for inexplicable reasons in this mod, Planet Busters are substantially cheaper than Tectonic or Fungal payloads. 256, 360, and 360 respectively with +2 INDUSTRY. That's a lot of Formers.
I decide to use spare Supply Crawlers to build a Fission Planet Buster prototype, since they have no other purpose at this point really. Otherwise I build 3 Super Hover Formers, 1 Super Former, and an armored Hovertank Probe Team for next turn. I figure there's no point making Drop probe teams because I can't find a drop zone anyways. We'll see if any of this helps before Domai declares a victory.
MY 2427. Domai begins the Ascent to Transcendence. I'm quite shocked that in his 155 mineral city, it takes 30 turns to complete. I check the Datalinks and this is basically correct, it's an egregiously expensive project. 8000 minerals, compared to the 3000 mineral Telepathic Matrix I completed, or the 2400 mineral Cloning Vats. This would be a real drag for someone who wants to win the game by Transcending, it's way more boring than waiting 20 turns to Corner the Energy Market. But for someone who actually doesn't want anybody to ever win by Transcending, this is a boon.
So, 30 turns to bring Domai under control, where I have pop booming and non-rioting drones and he doesn't. I need to destroy all these factories he's built, to end his ability to spew out satellites infinitely. I don't know how well a ground war is going to work, because he's got so many units already. I may invade by way of Lal's former backyard, as it might enable me to control our conditions of contact better. Roads exist all the way that way, it's just a question of turning them into rails.
I switch my budget to 100% Econ. No Psych, no Labs. I switch from Planned to Green because -1 EFFIC has a drastic effect on my Econ. +3 EFFIC, by contrast, raises my credits to 1947/turn. I "merely" suffer -10% econ with this choice. I never do this lopsided budget thing, but these are desperate times, in a mod that provides few pleasant SE options.
MY 2428. Domai has reduced his completion time to 26 turns, indicating that I have far less than 30 turns to get the job done.
MY 2429. Domai needs 23 turns. I have bridged to Lal's backyard. I wonder if this is his last city? I think I need to build all military units now. I design 4 different kinds of String Squads for taking bases. Also a Trance Radar Scout, which is cheap, will hold up to mindworms, and will help me advance across the wilderness.
I go Democratic, as it gets me an additional 300 credits/turn. Support doesn't matter anymore, and my net support is now -1 anyways, not a problem. PROBE is at -3 but I don't think I'm buying bases, I think I'm conquering them. I hope I'm saving for an Economic Victory. Domai's deployed satellites are horrific though. I hope it's keeping him from thinking about military units.
Post by: bvanevery on December 25, 2018, 03:04:39 AM
the wise man of the game |
MY 2430. I build a rail to what I believe is Lal's last city. He surrenders without a fight. I extend my rail a little west of his city before running out of Formers to build it. I make contact with some of Domai's mindworms and kill them. Next turn I will assault Domai's 1st back city. He needs 22 turns to complete his project.
MY 2431. I'm going to need to destroy Tachyon Fields as I advance. Their defensive strength overwhelms even my String Infantry. Domai's 1st base has seen so much probe team action that I can't hope to sabotage with an ordinary team. Instead I use those to steal money, gaining about 75 credits each. Some die, others become Elite. Algorithmically Enhanced teams have better odds, 75%. I bring down the Tachyon Field but the team dies. I make 1 per turn and have a reserve, so that's acceptable.
With only a Perimeter Defense, I don't quite understand the odds I'm looking at. The top of the odds verifier says 3 to 2, but the actual odds below look closer to 1 to 1. Rather than use another probe team to take down the defense, I attack to see which odds are correct. I fry the crap out of the defender, indicating the 3 to 2 is correct! Good, that means I can keep Perimeter Defenses, and I don't need to build expensive Blink Displacer units. I did theorize that the end of the game was a good time to attack, because this mod would no longer have any new armors, and I'd have almost 2:1 odds on the armor.
+4 PLANET is turning out to be useful. This mod raised the Psi offense bonus to +15% per point, giving me +60%. However it's still not enough some mindworm vs. mindworm fights.
jerk asteroid |
MY 2432. An asteroid takes out the minerals satellites. That might slightly help me, to the extent Domai tries to rebuild them, and doesn't build supply crawlers. Perhaps it hurt the production of Free Drone Central, because now the Ascent will complete in 30 turns. I've taken 3 of Domai's cities that used to be Lal's territory. Now I must enter a severe isthmus to get to Domai's main lands.
This is starting to look like a winnable game. I now have the offensive forces to overrun any individual city. I'm switching to defensive units for garrisoning. Domai doesn't seem to have garrisoned his back cities all that well, so as soon as I get rails to them, they will fall. Meanwhile the Ascent is taking him long enough, that I actually have time to get within range of his capitol and sabotage it. I guess Tim's extreme ideas on SP costs, finally "balanced out" when he blew the lid off the cost of the Ascent. If Domai could have just summarily built it, the game would be over now.
Midnight. Resting on my laurels today and signing off.
Post by: Geo on December 25, 2018, 09:38:01 AM
Post by: bvanevery on December 25, 2018, 01:19:51 PM
Funny turn of (random) events: it gives you much needed time to advance on the foe. ;lol
No kidding! I think it's the only genuinely helpful random event I've ever experienced. Now if we could just have a solar flare to knock out all his Orbital Power Transmitters.
8:20 AM. I resume. Merry Christmas!
MY 2434. I run into the Spartans at sea and they agree to a Truce. They hate me, but they like my Power politics. The rate at which the Drones have rebuilt their Nessus Mining Stations is terrifying, they have 18 in orbit now. They now only need 17 turns to complete the Ascent. Although this game could be winnable, it is also still losable. I have cleared the isthmus.
I'm finding that Domai's cities have Geosynchronous Survey Pods, which are essentially Sensor Arrays that I can't destroy. I would destroy Perimeter Defenses to compensate, but they come from the Citizens' Defense Force and I'm finding I can't destroy them. I'm going to have to take losses to secure the city at the end of the isthmus. Invasion is not going to be the cakewalk I thought. I start building Blink Displacer infantry to deal with it.
probe this |
MY 2435. Domai needs 15 turns. However I have 3 times as much money as he does, so I think about buying cities. I belatedly realize that a sea base I've been hitting with Cruiser probe teams over and over again, has 4 Secret projects in it. Unfortunately it's prohibitive to buy it. There is no point in changing my government model as I'm just a lousy probe team faction. Instead I sabotage a Robotic Assembly Plant for the last time, and that's the end of my Cruiser probe team fleet. It surely hasn't made any difference in the horrific rate of Nessus Mining Station production. I don't understand how Domai can get away with it, without being totally destroyed by mindworms.
I am now encountering many more mindworms around Domai's cities. It requires all of my own mindworms to eliminate and screen them. I take losses upon assaulting the next city, due to the invulnerability of the Citizens' Defense Force. One quirk of this game, is I've never had access to a Monolith. So, I am restricted by the time it takes troops to heal up. The Nano Factory helps with that some, but I also retreat a lot of troops by rail all the way back to my homeland to heal up at a Command Center. Domai generally doesn't have those because he's got the Command Nexus.
After taking one of Domai's cities, I do not have enough Formers to complete a rail link to the next city, nor the troops to make forward progress anyways. I contemplate what to do with the extra Formers. I decide to raise an enemy sea base next to my rail route over the isthmus. It has shot at my units with a Marine, and it has harbored a Locust that got badly wounded killing my expensive AAA unit. Wiping this city out makes my supply line safer, but also wounds every last offensive unit I've got.
I check on what it would cost to Corner the Energy Market. Over 1 million credits!
It's noon. I save the game and go do Christmas stuff.
Post by: bvanevery on December 25, 2018, 10:19:25 PM
MY 2436. Domai needs 14 turns. I've got far too many wounded units to continue towards Domai's capitol. Instead I weaken a city I've bypassed behind me. I discover that Geosynchronous Survey Pods can be attacked with a probe team after all. This makes me wonder what was going on at the other base, why I couldn't see any Sensor Array that was nevertheless giving a defense bonus. A bug?
MY 2437. Domai needs 12 turns. I take the city I weakened last turn. Otherwise I still just don't have enough healed units to move forwards. I plant fungus around cities I've already taken, to increase their minerals, and hopefully get me more units sometime soon. A bunch of my mindworms get killed trying to take out enemy mindworms in my path. They were supported by 1 Sensor Array in enemy territory that I didn't manage to destroy.
I design the Scout Skimmer hovertank unit, a cheap sacrificial unit to take out enemy Sensor Arrays. A Cloaking Device would have been useful for this, as that also allows one to ignore Zones of Control. Lacking that, a Hovertank Probe Team will accompany if needed. I also design a Grav Scout Skimmer, my 1st ever use of antigrav struts to increase range. I start thinking this is a good idea for probe teams as well and design a Grav Tank Probe Team. They will take 2 turns to produce instead of 1, but this may be what's needed to stop Domai's project.
7 PM. I weary of this and save the game.
Post by: bvanevery on December 26, 2018, 06:06:42 AM
MY 2438. Domai needs 10 turns. I have to sacrifice some old units to remove a Spore Launcher that's sitting on top of a Sensor Array I need to destroy. After that it's easy to get through the next base.
MY 2439. Domai needs 9 turns. I have a Grav Probe Team with 5 movement that could reach Free Drone Central, if only the roads weren't clogged with so many units. There's a wall of mindworms and spore launchers in front of me and most of my units are not effective against them, either on offense or defense. String Artillery is the only thing that works well, inflicting grievous wounds and allowing me to finish them off with a cheap unit. I've switched to making more of them. My own mindworm reserves are pretty much depleted from the unequal fights, but I've decided to make a few more of them for tactical reasons.
I've planted a lot of fungus around my forward cities. In the short run, this leaves me quite vulnerable to enemy mindworm attack. However this turn, I figure they'll probably just kill Formers, which can be replaced in 1 turn if need be. Long term, the fungus gives me massive production, 2-4-5 per square. My empire is about double the size it was, and the rate at which I produce units is increasing. That's needed because Domai can spam out anything he likes in 1 turn!
Assault on Ascent |
MY 2440. With 9 turns to go, I begin an assault on the Ascent to Transcendence. Taking of Steelfount this turn gave me an alternate route to Domai's capitol, thanks to various rails he halfway laid down for me. I don't even need to use the expensive Grav probe team to begin the attack. The odds seem to be the same as any other targeted sabotage I've done elsewhere, but my 1st team dies. My 2nd team prevails and lives to tell the tale! This is the single biggest loss of production due to sabotage I've ever seen in any game.
Mission Accomplished! |
Domai's doomsday clock is set to 26 turns. Domai's counterattack is gonna suck next year, but it's definitely worth it to push the clock back. Now, it is more about making a war with all of his mindworms.
I've realized that I could have the same level of productivity he does, if I want it. My low factory output was always about fear of global flooding and mindworm stacks, but I think with the Voice of Planet active, it doesn't happen anymore. I get fungal pops but no stacks, and I've seen no flooding. Still, I somewhat feel like roleplaying the principle of the thing. There's also the fact that soon I will take the Bulk Matter Transmitter. I'm leery of the mineral increase effect it may have, so no need to add fuel to the fire just yet.
3:30 AM. I do something else for awhile. 5 AM I resume.
MY 2441. I take an unimportant city. The rate at which Domai is spamming units is now a problem. Fortunately the AI seems to be a little too timid to just come overwhelm me. So I have to build up enough units to crush a base, to end its spamming. Wet, lather, rinse, repeat. This game definitely isn't won, but seems winnable.
MY 2443. Domai came down with a whole pile of mindworms and spore launchers, taking back a city. But a city full of Trance units does stop the advance. When his mindworms are in my territory and not supported by Sensor Arrays, they become killable. Perhaps he had Geosynchronous Survey Pods in his territory bolstering them before?
I've also discovered that I can afford Cost 4 Empath Song units in practice, with the amount of minerals cities have. After experimenting with Trance and Empath units, I came to favor mostly Empath hovertank designs. They can destroy Domai's mindworms and spore launchers just fine, and without an "invincible" horde, there's really nothing stopping me from eventually beating him. He'll spawn, but he'll move his units poorly, and it's only a game of whack-a-mole.
6:30 AM. Know what? I'm quitting / declaring "victory". The game is definitely winnable, it's just an incredibly tedious formal exercise to do so. There's no point vs. other ways I could be spending my game developer energy. TEST CONCLUDED.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 29, 2018, 02:45:55 PM
Remember you asked me to check my technology research timing adding technology values and research priorities into account to make sure they do not invalidate my results. I did. Against my own tree, not the original, though. Ran 16 different research priority combinations against a tree and averaged results. It mostly didn't push discovery times out of levels. I.e. technologies belonging to same level have close average discovery time. Few technologies on edge of level groups can overlap with technologies from neighbor group by 1-2 turns. However, since the standard deviation is about 5 turns, this is nothing and doesn't break general picture. See below.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 29, 2018, 02:51:18 PM
It takes my generic lining structure into account plus linking rules plus whatever dependencies I specify. These are generic dependencies and not immediate prerequisites - they specify that some technology should be a descendant of some others. It also obviously takes desired sequence of discoveries into account and populates the tree. I hardcoded it for my case only as I didn't expect much demand on it in modder community. However, let me know if you are interested in such thing.
Post by: bvanevery on December 30, 2018, 07:13:50 AM
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on December 30, 2018, 01:41:50 PM
When working on the tree, I typically need to see all the capabilities and dependencies visually to feel sane. I think I'm too tired to say more right now, it's 2:15 AM as I write this.
You mean like a picture or graph with each node containing all the information? That would be a huge work not only to draw it but to rearrange. Unless you are doing it on a magnetic board or something.
Post by: bvanevery on December 30, 2018, 03:47:00 PM
The main thing I actually wish for, is to be able to reload the tech tree instantly, instead of having to do the Start New Game... Load Game... F2... scroll down to where I need to be again shuffle. Reload time is a general problem I've found in games that I've modded. I am bound and determined to have that capability in my own game sometime "soon". At the present time though, there's a 1.27 to kick out the door.