Alpha Centauri 2

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri & Alien Crossfire => Command Nexus => Topic started by: JoGr223 on January 11, 2022, 11:40:53 PM

Title: World War 3 multiplayer scenario
Post by: JoGr223 on January 11, 2022, 11:40:53 PM

This scenario is about alternative beginning of planetfall: instead of factions not having contact with each other they "peacefully split" and land on Alpha Centauri with the goal of future peaceful cooperation. As the time passes they realize they have opposing ideology and tensions grow around the dimension of individual freedom. Over time they create alliances around this and finally start world war 3: democracy vs police state.

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scenario description:

factions:
group A (gA): lal, morgan, university
group B: hive, sparta, drones
SE:
gA may never use police state, fundamentalist, planned and power
gB may never use democracy, free market, wealth
This combines with other factions' attributes.

phase 1 (p1): 2101-2120 Global Research Pact and growing tensions
   Each faction shares their tech to all other factions immediately upon completion of research; all factions are in official pact with each other
phase 2: 2121-2140 Cold War
   GRP is ended; gA and gB remain in pact only within its owns groups; they also keep Research Pact within their groups; outside groups factions keep Treaties; it's forbidden to share tech or anything else with outside group;
phase 3: 2141- World War III
   gA and gB form official military pacts (keeping RP pact); as part of their agreement gA permanently adopts Democracy, while gB Police State; gA are now called The Freedom Axis, while gB The Collective Axis. Axises declare permanent vendetta upon each other. Win condition: eliminate opposing axis.
   
technical rules - anti-gamifying details:
1) forced tech share:
a) SE during p1 only: psych =<30% labs =>40%. So psych at most 30%, while labs at least 40%. Also it's forbidden to disbalance eco/labs (Eg go 60/0/40). This is so that gA is basically forced to share tech to gB and cannot "gamify" the scenario by not doing any research. They can choose which techs they research though. Examples: 30/30/40 or 50/10/40 is allowed and not considered disbalanced.

b) If you receive tech that you are currently researching then you must immediately change your research goal.
   
2) forced politics at p3 - what if faction have no energy credits to switch to agreed axis politics ? - you receive crippling penalty:
p3 beginning year: if your faction do not have EC to adopt your axis agreed politics then you must sell facilities to have EC ready this year. If it's not possible (e.g. lack of infra or you can't sell multiple infra in single city this year) then your allies need to provide EC for you (all if they have or partial if not). If they lack EC too then you must disband all your formers, crawlers and colony pods still in this year (it can be done even if unit already moved). You may not build any formers, crawlers and colony pods until you adopt required SE choice: you will have to stockpile energy in all your cities immediately since this year until you adopt your politics.
   
3) Planetary council may not be organized.
4) infiltration: p2: it's allowed to establish infiltration, but no other probe actions; probes must always be returned when found by enemy; probes cannot fight
5) base creeping is allowed (I mean gaining more territory by building bases on your boarders, even if it leads to gaining access to enemy's terraformed fields e.g. "stealing" boreholes) ; in p2 you cannot build bases on enemy territory (as it would normally result in vendetta)
6) p1: energy and unit transfers between any factions are disallowed (this is so that groups do not act as allies just yet)
7) terraforming: p1: terraforming on other factions territory disallowed; p2: terraforming on opposing group's territory disallowed
8. army:
p1: no units or prototypes with weapon other than "1-" can be build;
p2: no army can occupy opposing group's territory (but probes can unless found out and asked to leave); if ur army is on enemy territory because boarders changed u need to immediately move them out on your own and not wait for withdrawal demand - this is because all factions still want to avoid war at this point
note: if you have units on your side but touching boarder line, the "demand withdrawal" would also withdraw these units automatically by game engine; so you can keep your army there but don't touch boarder line
9) atrocities:
g1 cannot commit atrocities unless g2 does it first, in which case g1 can only use nukes
p1: g2 cannot commit any atrocities (so no nerve stapling for example; during this time g2 didn't yet clarify their evil nature :) )

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From game balance perspective it would be interesting to see whether low-research factions stand a chance in a this kind of scenario where they get a lot of free tech, individually in 1v1 I'm pretty sure each faction from gA would win against each from gB (all else being equal, so no advantage from RNG e.g. one being more lucky with sharing tech with AIs)

since i consider univ and sparta too much disbalanced, I'd consider rebalance:
univ: -1 ind
sparta: +2 effic; start with 60EC; starting techs: doc:mobility and B1:industrial base

Even for this kind of scenario where research is "leveled" between factions for long time I think it would make it even more leveled, but I'm not fully decided if this kind of change is needed for THIS particular scenario.

another thing would be tech rebalance, and here particularly nerfing big way air units:
e.g. swapping air (needler and copters) and hovertanks techs, so that air arrive past LVL8-9
air is just too op and arrive way too early + chasis is way too cheap

I'm not fully decided how long each phase should last. maybe it should be p1 20y and p2 10y, or each 30 years. I'm a bit afraid during Cold War gA would steamroll gB with some secret tech; or if map is small enough, then gB could just mass 4-1-2 or 4-1-3 with probes.

This kind of scenario could even be played in 1/1 on tiny map where each player controls 3 factions.

I wonder if for gA from "game theory" perspective it would be best to avoid making any "useful tech" (As long as there are other choices, with accordance to technical rules) and just keep psych at max allowed to slow down research to the max given gA is aware they need to share tech to future enemies; or maybe some kind of research strategy to make IA only once Cold War starts so that whole gA can then cooperate on speed-building SPs with crawlers.

So what's your thoughts about balance of this kind of scenario ? Which side you think would win ? :D

have there been similar ideas/topics in the past ? I mean scenarios with pre-defined alliances ? If yes please link.