Alpha Centauri 2

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri & Alien Crossfire => The Theory of Everything => Topic started by: Hierophant on May 13, 2020, 08:30:31 AM

Title: Things you won't do in your games
Post by: Hierophant on May 13, 2020, 08:30:31 AM

I searched to see if a thread like this had already been made, and didn't find any. I do not recall any being made either, from my cursory lurking in the past. So...

What are things that you won't do in your games, not because they are inefficient or not conducive to achieving your goals, but simply because they interfere with your roleplay/what you're comfortable doing?

I never nerve staple or use Planet Busters, or even consider it. I never repeal the UN charter for that matter, probably because I don't like the idea of the AI going around doing all this stuff without consequences.

Title: Re: Things you won't do in your games
Post by: lolada on May 13, 2020, 08:46:52 AM

- Due to balance issues i generally don't abuse supply crawlers - they are broken and game is too easy with them. So i restrict using them to 1-2 per base and i don't rush secret projects with them. Thats in vanilla game - mods change supply crawlers so then its more fair game to use them somewhat.
- Same i avoided spamming satelites, broken op as well.
- Terraformers - i avoid ruining AI land with terafform up/down. I usually just create a land bridge rarely -if there's good spot, once or twice per game.
- Planet busters - i do avoid these; tho if i play yang, miriam or someone like that i might do it ^^ zakharov could do it for science lel
- i don't buill all secret projects even if i can; though i usually quit if i can. No Merchant exchange for Gaians for example, its thematic.
- other than that i tend to not exploit AI, base buying.. they seem to sell bases for not too many credits.. no lame exploits of any kind


And mostly i play to factions strengths if possible even if it hurts them sometimes - so its strictly not optimal.. like picking Power with Santiago or Fundamentalism with Miriam.

Title: Re: Things you won't do in your games
Post by: EmpathCrawler on May 13, 2020, 01:29:08 PM

Quote from: lolada on May 13, 2020, 08:46:52 AM

- Due to balance issues i generally don't abuse supply crawlers - they are broken and game is too easy with them. So i restrict using them to 1-2 per base and i don't rush secret projects with them. Thats in vanilla game - mods change supply crawlers so then its more fair game to use them somewhat.
- Same i avoided spamming satelites, broken op as well.
- Terraformers - i avoid ruining AI land with terafform up/down. I usually just create a land bridge rarely -if there's good spot, once or twice per game.
- Planet busters - i do avoid these; tho if i play yang, miriam or someone like that i might do it ^^ zakharov could do it for science lel
- i don't buill all secret projects even if i can; though i usually quit if i can. No Merchant exchange for Gaians for example, its thematic.
- other than that i tend to not exploit AI, base buying.. they seem to sell bases for not too many credits.. no lame exploits of any kind


And mostly i play to factions strengths if possible even if it hurts them sometimes - so its strictly not optimal.. like picking Power with Santiago or Fundamentalism with Miriam.

These are similar to my house rules. I play with Thinker so the AI is still challenging me enough where they are taking secret projects. Sometimes I'll build one to deny it from another faction. In my current game, Yang got both Command Nexus AND Weather Paradigm! I'll make 2 crawlers per base and 10 satellites of each kind. No crawler rushing.


I also play fairly peacefully and aim for Transcendence. No atrocities, few aggressive wars. It's on sight if I neighbor Miriam or Yang, though, because I can't risk them growing too powerful. If I do end up in a big war, I'll let the loser live on under a submission pact if they want and even give them their bases back. I once accidentally won a diplomatic victory that way.

Title: Re: Things you won't do in your games
Post by: Nexii on May 13, 2020, 05:18:05 PM

I limit myself to 1 crawler per base. If there was an option for that I'd enable it. I prefer them to be in the game than not. Otherwise not too much comes to mind since I've modded a lot to temper OP strategies and bring up the weak ones.

Otherwise, lately I've been wanting to do a few games more in forced RP style. Only pick Fundamentalism as Miriam, Police State as Yang, etc. Only pick the default research priorities with Blind research. Maybe use a d20 to decide whether to war/treaty, with modifiers for aggressive and pacifist. Along the same lines perhaps only aggressive factions can use Planet Busters.

Title: Re: Things you won't do in your games
Post by: bvanevery on May 13, 2020, 10:01:08 PM

I never backstab other factions when I have a Truce, Treaty, or Pact with them.  I insist on keeping my Reputation as Noble.  This is very much in disproportion to the game mechanical penalty I'd likely incur for breaking my word.  I'm just not into playing a mealymouthed liar.  I'll certainly use other forms of duplicity, like sending in a probe team to start a war I actually want.  But I won't lie about the Treaty, or dishonor the Treaty unless given a reason I should.

I almost never nerve staple.  Quite often I don't even have the option, because Democratic in my mod has a -1 POLICE penalty, is valuable for making money unlike the stock game, and so worth choosing as a kind of government.  But when I do have the option, I tend to forget that I do.  I don't like receiving sanctions, and it's generally easy enough to turn off a Worker and make them a Doctor.  Then rush the needed happiness facility or bring in a Non-Lethal Methods unit or whatever.  I just don't see a lot of price premium value to Nerve Stapling.  Even if I'm playing Chairman Yang I almost never do it.  I might remember it if we're in the middle of sunspots and there are no Sanction consequences for doing it.  The vast majority of the time I forget all about it though.

I like that Nerve Stapling is a narrative flavor in the game, but I actually don't think it's incentivized or has any real practical use.

Even in the case of a famine, you can just let people starve.  It's less consequential than Sanctions.  So I let them starve, if there's no other tactic possible.  I'd bring in an expendable unit, disband it, and rush a Rec Commons if that would solve the problem.  If I'm too broke or there are aren't enough old units around, hey people can starve.  It's an empire on a hostile planet and things don't have to go perfectly for everyone.  Usually I didn't ask for the starvation events anyways, it's some BS the random number generator threw at me.  So I don't even feel a sense of moral obligation about it.  It's almost as though it's not even happening, for me.

I rarely crawl supplies to a base anymore.  I'm opposed to the wasting of my mouseclicks with such fiddly details.  I certainly won't do it for a famine, which I think is the kind of BS event that they wanted me to bother to fiddle with this.  I might crawl some resources to my capitol temporarily, if I've made more supply crawlers than I needed to complete a Secret Project.  Might as well do something with them while I'm waiting for the next SP to come around.  I try to complete my SPs with excess money, not excess crawlers.  I think crawlers have turned out to be cheating and exploitation, so I don't want to live the life of a cheater.

If I'm a human, I will never commit atrocities against other humans.  Unless I've decided that's the kind of role I'm going to play before I even start the game.  I will get my Hitler / Stalin / Mao Tse-Tung / Pol Pot thing on.  But I have to decide that's the sort of game I'm doing.  And I typically am writing up an After Action Report for such games.  It's not standard drill for ordinary games.  I'm frankly too good to need to do this to anybody, to do it out of desperation.  So it has to be about wanting to do it, which is an ahead-of-game deliberate roleplaying decision.  I almost always come up with some concept for what an AAR is going to showcase.  I've written so bloody many of them, that I hardly need to "document an ordinary game" anymore.  So like, the game will feature chemical weapons ASAP, with commensurate planetary flooding.  Or it'll feature a total Planet Buster finish, with lots of "nuke porn".

If I am human, I will commit atrocities against Aliens.  They're consequence free and highly effective.  The game railroading fiat is that everyone "has to" starve to death when the city's species changes hands anyways.  I think that idea is sci-fi ridiculous, since they're farming the same land and it didn't all turn into toxic waste when the other guy left.  I just tend to go along with the inherent stupidity of it.  However, I also don't tend to use the chemical weapons unless I have a need to do so.  That's just force of habit, like if my weapons are working fine, why would I need to think of it?

If I am Alien, I don't tend to use chemical weapons on either Aliens or Humans.  The other Alien, because their cities are the only source of viable retained population, and your economic network gets bigger the more Alien cities you have.  A Human, because I just tend to forget that I can.  A consequence of me being nice in human vs. human faction squabbles.

Humans do have to wipe out Alien factions to win Diplomatic Victory, which is why I'm more likely to use chemical weapons.  The same is not true when trying to win as an Alien.  There's no such thing as Diplomatic Victory.

And after all this blather, I almost forgot the biggest one of them all, that started this whole thread. I will not win a game by Transcending.  Ever, anymore.  I am morally opposed to it.  I see it as the death of the individual and of humanity.  I do not believe there is any victory in a human suicide pact.  Is my point of view, rather much like Miriam's warning about losing yourself to the cybernetic, but on steroids?  There is no basic value in what this sentient Planet is offering.  Its behavior should be changed, or it should be lobotomized, or it should be killed.  We can solve anything with enough Singularities, heh!

Title: Re: Things you won't do in your games
Post by: Nexii on May 13, 2020, 10:24:54 PM

I thought of one more: no reverse engineering weapon module or chassis from premade units. Though I've modded around it today. Probe units are always available and any faction that gets a sea chassis also gets Centauri Ecology. Can't do much about sea formers being a hardcoded pre-made unit, or the fact that there can't be more than one prerequisite on pre-made units.

Title: Re: Things you won't do in your games
Post by: bvanevery on May 14, 2020, 02:04:28 AM

My Conquer 2 Planetary Networks gives both Speeder and Foil Probe teams.  It has Conquer 1 Doctrine: Mobility and Explore 1 Doctrine: Flexibility as prereqs.  Problem solved.  Well, as long as you accept "delay by 1 tech, entitles you to completing the prototype".  That's my drill for all of these things.  Best I can do for a *.txt only mod.

I finally decided to give Synthmetal Armor outright in Conquer 1 High Energy Chemistry, no prototyping required.  Helps the AI on defense at the beginning of the game.  Since I also make Clean Reactors available from the beginning, they can immediately start on Clean Synth Sentinels and prevent a human player from rushing them.  For those used to heroics with Speeders, it's a bit disturbing to send them out and find out the defense is stiff and they're all gonna bounce.

Higher weapons and armors generally do require you to figure out your own prototypes.  Some specific exceptions.

So yeah I don't need to roleplay or otherwise restrict myself at this.  The problem doesn't exist in my mod.

Title: Re: Things you won't do in your games
Post by: Nexii on May 14, 2020, 02:37:50 AM

I had to make Probe module always available because I also had basic units for Cruiser and Hovertank Probe teams. I'm not sure if the AI really uses them yet.

Title: Re: Things you won't do in your games
Post by: bvanevery on May 14, 2020, 05:15:14 AM

Cruiser probe teams, yes, the stock AI will use such a predefined unit.

Hovertank probe teams, don't think I've ever seen the stock AI build that predefined unit.  I eventually took them out of my predefined units, as if the AI won't build it, it merely gives away a prototype that I'd just as soon not give away.  I haven't tried hovertank probe teams again recently.  Who knows, it is possible that something could have changed, but I doubt it.

Title: Re: Things you won't do in your games
Post by: lolada on May 14, 2020, 12:24:58 PM

I see some hovertank probes with WTP and thinker ai.. they are a bit more dangerous, but it doesn't really matter. You have to protect from rover probes anyway.. so 2 or 3 movement point is of little difference ingame. Player for example has mag tubes and then i almost never build hovertanks. Rovers are just fine, and infantry is great for base attacks when movement is no problem. Drop probes are quite awesome for example for mobility.

Cruiser probes are nice to move around, but more expensive. I don't think AI understands well those designs - it just wastes time and minerals often on them. For example building expensive rover colony pod when standard infantry colony pod is much better. Similar with probe teams - 0-1-4 foils are often good enough yet AI wastes ton of turns building 0-10-6 cruiser types - especially expensive if they are armored. Now armor gives them survivability if: 1) they get attacked by standard unit... if attacked by cheap probe it doesn't matter; 2) doesn't save them if unit on top of them is defending - they still instant-die in collateral damage.

I'd be careful if i would allow AI to use advanced more expensive designs.

Title: Re: Things you won't do in your games
Post by: bvanevery on May 14, 2020, 03:44:26 PM

In my mod I shifted to armored infantry probes as the AI's land workhorse.  3-Pulse Infantry Probe Teams are particularly nasty to get rid of.  Yes you see them coming, but you're going to need a real weapon to get rid of them.  You're not going to do it with another probe team, because of the armor.  A mindworm has been a typical antidote.  The stock AI may not be the most effective prober in the world, but I don't think I'm doing any worse than the stacks of 4 unarmored rover probe teams that were routinely getting killed en masse.

For ship probes, I've shifted to armored foil probe teams.  The AI is way more effective at making it through enemy lines with armored ships.  I've had Cruiser Probe Teams as unarmored.  Maybe it's time to armor those up as well.  The costs in my mod are: 3-Pulse armored foil = 70, unarmored cruiser = 70, 3-Pulse armored cruiser = 90.

The armored infantry land probes tend to appear on their own, not as part of a stack.  Ships generally don't do any kind of stack warfare.