[MGM] Second ruleset

[bvanevery]

My response to your intent, is that the cost of a SP, is a rule.  You are making big changes to the rules.

Ones that I would not even touch with a 10 foot pole; in my view your changes to these costs are egregiously large as well as capricious.  Now, maybe you have made these changes because in your personal style of playing the game, "you think this is best".  I would encourage you to have extensive design discussions with other players though, because I'm doubting that "hitting the roof" about your changes as I've done, is going to be an uncommon reaction.  Generally speaking the point of a mod is to have others play it.  If others think, on the balance, that you've come close to losing your mind about something, then they aren't going to play it.

Maybe some people will play any mod.  Others, I think, are going to play SMAC because it's a game with certain extant values to them.  They expect certain "core" things about the game to be respected, or else they'd be finding some other game to go play.  Let's face it, a lot of us play SMAC and not other Civ games because we feel that the Civ franchise "lost their way" at some point.  Discussion with others, would help you determine where your mod stands with respect to other players' expectations.

So now I'll ask specific hard questions about your changes for Secret Projects:

- Judging by the 800 cost weight you put on it, you are very, very opposed to players obtaining The Empath Guild in the timeframe they ordinarily do in the game.  Why?  Do you believe it is a game ender?  Do you believe that nobody should be allowed to communicate for long distances?  What size of map do you typically play on?  Do you primarily play single player or multiplayer?  If The Empath Guild is so bad, why don't you just remove it from the game?

- The Cloudbase Academy is widely regarded as overpowered.  Raising its cost is not an unreasonable idea.  But why do you believe it is twice as powerful as The Cyborg Factory?  Do you think that everyone always builds Sky Hydroponics Labs to drive their civilization and that's the only thing anyone cares about?  Have you not heard of Hybrid Forests or Aquafarms?

- The actual long term value of The Weather Paradigm is your terraforming goes significantly faster.  Being able to raise land and build advanced facilities is only a short term advantage.  Ecological Engineering and Environmental Economics do come around mid-game, all factions can do these things.  You can't get full mineral and energy values out of things like Thermal Boreholes until you research those techs anyways.  Raising land isn't forbidden, it's part of the game.  The WP makes players able to do it early, that's its main function.  By imposing a 3x cost on making it - let's put this in perspective, I could have The Human Genome Project, The Command Nexus, and The Merchant Exchange for the same price you've set - you are saying you're very, very opposed to people being able to raise land early.  Why?  And if you are so opposed, why not just take it out of the game?

- Why do you think the Planetary Transit System even affects the game?  Do you have some personal playstyle where you've found a way to make this SP overpowered and incredible?  I've been playing the game 18 years.  I'm not seeing why you're picking on a pretty lame SP here.  Are you a big fan of Infinite City Sprawl?  Do you think everyone is?

- Why if you are on a crusade about "shouldn't get certain SPs until later", did you leave The Virtual World alone?  Is it because you think Zhakarov would be hurt if he can't try to build it on the usual schedule?

- Why do you think it's ok for people to get The Human Genome project in the usual timeframe?  It's pretty powerful to have 1 extra Talent.  It's arguably the best early 200 point SP, and it will benefit you the whole game.

- Since The Planetary Datalinks is likely to become available at a similar time to The Planetary Transit System and The Planetary Energy Grid, why did you leave it alone?

And finally:

- Do you honestly believe that the packaging value of containing all rules changes in alphax.txt, warrants large distortions of the game as we know it?  You can change other files to make SPs be tied to later techs.  You can have players install parallel copies of SMAC installations, it is not hard.  I'm not sure if I recently taught you how to do that; I definitely reminded you that it can be readily done.

[Buster's Uncle]

Just an observation about life that it's possible to be 100% correct and still charge at it TOO hard.  -That's a wall up there.

[bvanevery]

I am sufficiently unfamliar with modding, that I have just realized the requirements for Secret Projects are completely contained in alphax.txt.  There is no packaging problem here.  If one wants a SP to be gained later, move it to a tech where it is gained later.  Questions still remain as to why one wishes to do that, as I've not found gaining Centauri Empathy to be a cakewalk.  But I'm not seeing the basic reason to implement a "delay of The Empath Guild" by using a 4x production cost increase.

Also: why cripple Deirdre and Cha Dawn?  The Explore tech tree is definitely Deirdre's tech tree, and often coincides with Cha Dawn's interests as well.  Zhakarov isn't being picked on with The Virtual World.  Lal isn't being picked on with The Human Genome Project.  Yang isn't getting picked on with The Command Nexus.  Morgan isn't being picked on with The Merchant Exchange.  Why Deirdre?  Why should she have to "fight from behind" while other factions get good core Secret Projects for their empires?

[Mart]

Just a general remark, there is a rule modification, that makes these larger costs more about right compared to standard ruleset. It is about the synergy of these changes.
Regarding why these SPs and not the other ones - just decided, that in this version (it is still testing version) I would try only some of the SPs. In general, I would change only part of SPs, it is not like I think all SP costs are wrong in vanila ruleset. I would just adjust some of them. And the less the better. You for example say, these changed costs are hard to accept, I know, many will fel that way. On the other hand - this is a mod, so it modifies something.

...

- Judging by the 800 cost weight you put on it, you are very, very opposed to players obtaining The Empath Guild in the timeframe they ordinarily do in the game.  Why?  Do you believe it is a game ender?  Do you believe that nobody should be allowed to communicate for long distances?  What size of map do you typically play on?  Do you primarily play single player or multiplayer?  If The Empath Guild is so bad, why don't you just remove it from the game?

The impact of EG on multiplayer is much larger than in singleplayer, I had cases, when players asked to set to destroyed this SP and often CBA too when I was preparing scenarios. In multiplayer it gives infiltration too easily according to players.

It is not game ender, I can play multiplayer with EG. In singleplayer the effect is smaller, but still it is significant and I think warrants larger effort to get it. As for the time, in directed research there are players who would B-line to it and get very early. On large size maps it may be a way of getting factional commlinks much sooner than with scouting, and I did that once in multiplayer on huge map. However, huge maps also make it easier to build, so larger cost is easier there. E.g. you most likely have more AAs, materials pods.
In blind research, it may be, that it is not accessible early, but still EG is very powerful. Not only for the commlinks, but infiltration mainly. With EG a player does not need to probe 6 factions with all costs of these actions, time spent on sending out probes. And additional votes are useful, since benefits can be large from it.

- The Cloudbase Academy is widely regarded as overpowered.  Raising its cost is not an unreasonable idea.  But why do you believe it is twice as powerful as The Cyborg Factory?  Do you think that everyone always builds Sky Hydroponics Labs to drive their civilization and that's the only thing anyone cares about?  Have you not heard of Hybrid Forests or Aquafarms?

CA is not just hydroponics, but it works together with overpowered Air Power. You get Aerospace complex everywhere for free, even in just conquered base. This makes easier conquering with planes/copters. Additional move points increase the overpowering more.
CF might get change too, testing would tell.

- The actual long term value of The Weather Paradigm is your terraforming goes significantly faster.  Being able to raise land and build advanced facilities is only a short term advantage.  Ecological Engineering and Environmental Economics do come around mid-game, all factions can do these things.  You can't get full mineral and energy values out of things like Thermal Boreholes until you research those techs anyways.  Raising land isn't forbidden, it's part of the game.  The WP makes players able to do it early, that's its main function.  By imposing a 3x cost on making it - let's put this in perspective, I could have The Human Genome Project, The Command Nexus, and The Merchant Exchange for the same price you've set - you are saying you're very, very opposed to people being able to raise land early.  Why?  And if you are so opposed, why not just take it out of the game?

Yes, but WP is not forbidden, it just needs more effort and you may have it for smaller part of tech tree before getting EcoEng and EnvEco, regarding these terraformings. Reduced cost of actions is something unique. WP is giving a player substantial advantage and these 200 is too cheap and easy, I think.

- Why do you think the Planetary Transit System even affects the game?  Do you have some personal playstyle where you've found a way to make this SP overpowered and incredible?  I've been playing the game 18 years.  I'm not seeing why you're picking on a pretty lame SP here.  Are you a big fan of Infinite City Sprawl?  Do you think everyone is?

PTS can double-triple your faction population if played in certain way in early game. In directed research this is more possible, in blind research much less. It is similar to HGP for bases 3 or smaller. In late game, still if you grow a faction, new bases can often skip the trouble of growing from size 1 to 3. I do not think this SP is weak.

- Why if you are on a crusade about "shouldn't get certain SPs until later", did you leave The Virtual World alone?  Is it because you think Zhakarov would be hurt if he can't try to build it on the usual schedule?

VW might get cost increase, yes it is very beneficial.

- Why do you think it's ok for people to get The Human Genome project in the usual timeframe?  It's pretty powerful to have 1 extra Talent.  It's arguably the best early 200 point SP, and it will benefit you the whole game.

This one is strange somewhat, because we actually already have HGP here, it was not so when Civ2 and SMAC came out. As far as I know.

- Since The Planetary Datalinks is likely to become available at a similar time to The Planetary Transit System and The Planetary Energy Grid, why did you leave it alone?

They might get change, not sure now.

And finally:

- Do you honestly believe that the packaging value of containing all rules changes in alphax.txt, warrants large distortions of the game as we know it?  You can change other files to make SPs be tied to later techs.  You can have players install parallel copies of SMAC installations, it is not hard.  I'm not sure if I recently taught you how to do that; I definitely reminded you that it can be readily done.

There are mods that change a lot in the game. This mod is minimal, only alphax.txt, what can be used just in scenario folder very easily. Some players do not want to go to trouble of making additional folder or replacing files, etc.

[Mart]

I am sufficiently unfamliar with modding, that I have just realized the requirements for Secret Projects are completely contained in alphax.txt.  There is no packaging problem here.  If one wants a SP to be gained later, move it to a tech where it is gained later.  Questions still remain as to why one wishes to do that, as I've not found gaining Centauri Empathy to be a cakewalk.  But I'm not seeing the basic reason to implement a "delay of The Empath Guild" by using a 4x production cost increase.

Also: why cripple Deirdre and Cha Dawn?  The Explore tech tree is definitely Deirdre's tech tree, and often coincides with Cha Dawn's interests as well.  Zhakarov isn't being picked on with The Virtual World.  Lal isn't being picked on with The Human Genome Project.  Yang isn't getting picked on with The Command Nexus.  Morgan isn't being picked on with The Merchant Exchange.  Why Deirdre?  Why should she have to "fight from behind" while other factions get good core Secret Projects for their empires?

I do not want to change SP techs. WP is with Centauri Ecology, and I think it should stay that way. SP cost change effects techs much less than removing an SP to another technology. Technology replacement changes technologies values more I think.

I am not sure about Merchant Exchange, but it might get increase of cost too. I haven't done that yet, but I think about it.

[bvanevery]

If "other factors" actually cause your 800 point Secret Projects to be 300 points, I strongly urge you to disclose that up front when asking people to playtest your mod.  Rather than the "coy" approach of asking, "Did you notice any differences?"  Yes I noticed, so hard that I blew a gasket! and refused to play your mod.

Beware of multiplayer bias.  Sure there can be some big problem in multiplayer.  You may not be able to have 1 design that solves that problem and doesn't wreck single player.  Multiplayer is about humans wanting things to be "fair" as they trounce each other.  It's also about people with short attention spans.  Single player is about players trouncing the computer.  The computer doesn't have an emotional response to being abused, so the design parameters are different.  Single players play longer games, because they don't have to wait around for other people's turns or life schedules.  This was awful in the Wesnoth universe, for instance.  Wesnoth has RPG-oriented elements, which single player modders would try to turn into long RPG campaigns.  But Wesnoth programmers were mostly multiplayer battle oriented, so they would often suppress features that would be more useful to a RPG oriented player.

I think if someone thinks The Planetary Transit System is an "early" way of spreading, then they either don't know how to actually spread early in the game, or they are obsessed with gigantic empires.  I play on 80x160 and 128x256 maps regularly, so I think I know something about "needed scale of empire".

I do not want to change SP techs. WP is with Centauri Ecology, and I think it should stay that way. SP cost change effects techs much less than removing an SP to another technology.

I don't agree at all.  I'm not sure what gaming conditions you've evolved in, where you think choosing to build 1 SP (WP) vs. 3 (HGP, CN, ME) is not a big deal.  Or that building even 1 SP is easy, early in the game.  There is simply no game design universe that I exist in, where WP = HGP + CN + ME.  If we are that far apart in game design sensibilities, there will be little reason for me to continue discussing your work, let alone trying it out.  It's not about "it's a mod, something changed".  It's about your seeming lack of any reasonable sense of proportion for the changes you've made.

I've done a lot of modding in other places, namely The Battle for Wesnoth once upon a time.  There's good stuff out there, there's complete junk out there.  I've taken four months full time to work on a campaign.  Like I could have collected 16 paychecks for the work I did on the campaign, if anyone had been paying me.  I took game balance very seriously, the majority of my time was spent tweaking settings and replaying scenarios to make sure they actually provided the challenges they were supposed to.  Like whether it's supposed to be 120 gold or 150 gold or 200 gold.  Whether those correspond to Easy, Normal, Hard difficulties or not.  Whether a noob will be made miserable, whether a player as experienced as I am can actually beat the thing.

It takes a long time to iterate on that sort of thing.  Since I've taken things that seriously, something like an "amateur professional level" of content development, I don't like it when modders don't respect "basic proportions" and offer to throw a game to the mickey.  How many iterations is it going to take before they see the light, that the proportions matter?  Well, I'm not going to spend my time iterating on that, as I know what the inevitable results will be, from long experience.

In Wesnoth, they've made it easy to get one's hands on a campaign.  You can download such things straight from the game itself.  It's also easy to play a scenario and grooooan.  Well the authors set up forums for people to provide feedback... and one doesn't have to, if it's awful work.

One of the design parameters is "respecting the work that already exists".  Mods should fix things that are broken, they should add capabilities that offer more than what the game already did.  (Some modders don't know how to use what's already in the game.)  They shouldn't just do things like hey all your pea shooters are now tanks, and vice versa.  There should be compelling reasons for that, before throwing the original design out the window.

I don't have professional game development credentials.  But I did judge the Independent Game Festival for 6 years, so I've looked at a lot of games in gory detail.  I've run my gamedesign-l for 18 years, although it's been quiet in recent years.  My point is, I know more than zero about game design.

So you have my feedback as a game desginer, that there are some rather wrong things in your current approach.  I hope you consider the big abstract principles of what you are trying to accomplish, and don't get stuck on arbitrary ideas like "I don't want to ever change the tech associated with a SP."

[Buster's Uncle]

Just an observation about life that it's possible to be 100% correct and still charge at it TOO hard.  -That's a wall up there.

[Mart]

I am not sure, if that 800 would feel like 300. It might be something different. More like: "well, it is more expensive, but it is not that big deal, cause of ..."
I do not want to say it, so that I do not spoil the experience to try it without knowing. If a player have no preconceptions, he/she may notice something, that would not be possible otherwise.

I play Data Angels scenario now, but I will try Gaians after that and see how these changes hinder them.

[bvanevery]

I do not want to say it, so that I do not spoil the experience to try it without knowing.

I have tried to make you aware that there are other parameters to consider, when trying to get people to playtest your work and provide constructive (or even destructive) criticism of it.  "Goofy play" is going to select against certain kinds of players, who will refuse to take your work seriously.  YMMV as to how many of those are out there in the wild.  I don't think you actually want the most easygoing person in the world giving you advice on what's right or wrong with your mod.

Again I would strongly suggest you fully disclose "basics" of your design choices.  You do not have to spill all the beans.

[Mart]

This game is exceptional. It is testing of a mod in-making. Gameplay experience is one of the objectives, so players should not know changes in advance.
Once the all changes are in their final, at least for the first release version, then full list of changes could be given before playing.

This is what I want to achieve: a player knows, that some changes are there, but does not know what changes, so can compare how the gameplay feels in relation to standard ruleset. And can think of a list of such changes. The aim is, that some changes cannot be spotted, but at the same time, AI appears to play better, or overpowered strategies, like those using Air Power, are less game-breaking. Late game more meaningful is also objective. In late game often one can research 1-2 techs per turn. I wanted to change that. This much maybe I can tell here.

[bvanevery]

Good luck then.

[Mart]

After thoughts on the SPs costs, I made the next ruleset. So as this mod is intended to be "minimal changes" I would modify as little items as possible, but hoping to fix some gameplay problems.


WP, EG - both will have cost 400. Just 2x, and let's see how this plays.
PEG - it is now 500, but still not sure how much close it is to what might be final.
AtT-  stays 3000, and may stay that way. It is only 1,5x. But the cost +1000 additional, would keep this victory somewhat longer anyway.
CA - stays 800. Important for Air Power game-breaking.


The rest changes reverted to original, and that would be PTS only, I think. Just thought, that other SPs from that game era, like we discussed here, might get also cost increase, but "minimal changes mod" is not served this way. So I did not want change VW cost for example, or Command Nexus. Merchant Exchange can stay at 200, it needs special attention to play anyway.


Yes, EG in Singleplayer may not be suitable to cost 800, it is MP bias. It is rather, that MP gamers could adjust to SP gaming and accept, that EG gives such benefits. EG is not that overpowered like CA is (my estimate here).

[bvanevery]

In my own modding effort, I have moved The Weather Paradigm to Ecological Engineering.  The main ongoing value of the WP is that you terraform faster.  I think if you're 1st to EE, it's reasonable for a player to terraform faster.  Just as 1st to Doctrine:Initiative, it's reasonable to sail faster.  The land raising is no longer "early", as Environmental Economics is the next tech up.  It's only a slight head start in that regard.  It no longer offers any benefit for Boreholes etc. at all as you've got EE anyways.  I think Boreholes are useless until you get EE anyways due to the minerals restriction.

I have moved lots of things around all over the place, changing many relationships between techs.  I don't believe in your idea of a "minimally invasive mod" at all, I'm aiming to fix everything that's broken.  Problems you've tried to solve by making Secret Projects egregiously expensive, I'm solving by putting them later in tech trees, thereby forcing players to do more research specialization to even have a chance of getting them.  The dynamic of "start a project, any project" and then just happily taking whatever's left from the races, disgusts me as a game mechanic.  So now in my mod you actually have to work for the privilege of starting The Human Genome Project, The Weather Paradigm, The Merchant Exchange, and The Virtual World.  None of them are easy, quick, immediate Secret Projects.  They cost the same, but you have to pay the cost of research.  The Planetary Energy Grid is moving to Planetary Economics as it's way powerful and should be that late.  I haven't decided where to put The Ascetic Virtues instead, but I've realized it has more in common with human mind control stuff than anything economic.

[Kirov]

I support Mart's radical approach to PTS, EG and CBA. And I belong to the folks who insist on removing the latter two altogether from MP games. I see no reason that the 'multiplayer bias' should take a back seat to the 'singleplayer bias'. Although it may be true that those two are irreconcilable in one set of rules. I'll have to think about that. But the thing is, ridiculous prices for singleplayer don’t hurt it as much as cheap game-breaking projects do for multiplayer.

EG in singleplayer games is just okayish, I'm not sure I would even build it if I started a game from a scratch. But in the multiplayer environment, infiltration is one of the most important (and broken) aspects of the game and people would often trade away a good base to the AI in order to prevent falling victim to it. Likewise, the election is always a huge event. This kind of power should not be vested in any single particular thing to do. I don't know what level of cost would deter me from grabbing the EG, but we'd be talking thousands here.

CBA - Aero Complexes have several unreported effects, of which the morale bonus may be very well the least important. They confer +100% bonus to air defence and prevent air drops. They help with (building and benefitting from) satellites. On the top of that, CBA gives that movement bonus (crucial for interceptions). I take CBA hands down than the CF at half its price. Bio-enhancement centres give bonuses to all kinds of units in the era when only air power really matters and the rest is strategically reduced to base capturing and harassment. In fact, my next MP game would be either without air units altogether or with their movement cut in half (raising the cost doesn’t change anything, you’d just have the same army composition but with fewer needlejets).

PTS – my favourite early-game Project both in the single- and multi-player environment. The fact that some bases will starve down to 2 (if not pre-terraformed) is probably the only reason I don’t consider it OP. But here I’d agree with moving SPs down the tech tree – the IA tech is already ridiculously overpowered (with Wealth and crawlers) and I’d be happy to see it cut in half. Up until Fusion Power, there are several key techs which force quite a strict beeline without the blind research. This is one of the biggest problems with the overall SMAC strategy. But messing with that may very well go beyond what Mart’s trying to accomplish here.

In general, for MP games I would rip the air power apart. For SP games, I'd get creative with terraforming as the AI not doing the 'forest & forget' approach is one of its main disadvantages. Remember also that introducing Probe Cruisers to the list of template units will actually make the AI build and use them.

[bvanevery]

I see no reason that the 'multiplayer bias' should take a back seat to the 'singleplayer bias'.

I do: SMAC is inherently too long of a game, to be playing much multiplayer.  I will always design with single player in mind for this reason.  I leave multiplayer design to the RTS genre.  I have played plenty of face-to-face modern board games, I know all about what works from a play mechanical standpoint in multiplayer.  SMAC doesn't and never could.

Recently I designed a kind of contest, "same map, same start", that actually can be done by multiple people asynchronously.  Although, some will say I've simply reinvented the Scenario wheel.  I might say I noticed the obvious, that passing a .SAV around works without any special support from the game.

This is directly influenced by many European "nonviolent" (?) board game designs I played a few years ago.  I don't like them, because the power of players to interfere with each other in such games is exceedingly limited.  You've almost got 4 players sitting around a common board playing glorified solitaire together.  It encourages more casual play and less cutthroat roughness, which some consider a good thing.

I find it has a very nasty endgame for players such as myself who grew up on "sterner stuff" though.  My culture of trash talking, which BUncle and I have administered to each other back and forth a bit, got me ultimately kicked out of the group.  Too offensive to some people, their feelings got hurt.  Drinking coffee made me worse about it too, learned that the hard way.  I simply could not understand why these people were not doing everything in their power to stomp me in the 11th hour when I had pointed out how they were clearly losing and were going to die if they didn't gang up and intervene on me.  What kinds of players are these??

Well, they're more casual players with thinner skins, that's what.  And this is deceptive, because the group had enough players just as detached and ruthless as I was, not to immediately notice this difference in group composition.  Yes I wasn't offending players A, B, and C but I was offending players D, E, and F.  DEF formed an alliance and voted me off the island.

But the thing is, ridiculous prices for singleplayer don’t hurt it as much as cheap game-breaking projects do for multiplayer.

That's my single player game you're talking about trashing there.  I'm not having it.

I have trouble even believing in the valididty of some of these "game breaking" claims.  Sounds like a lot of whining about Probe Teams.  I already whine about Probe Teams in single player.  I'm not yet prepared to mod them out of existence, I think that's a bridge too far.  What I want, is for the takeover of a city, to be as expensive as all the units actually in the city.  You shouldn't get these big stacks of units gratis, you should need a lot of cash to pull that off.  If you're that economically powerful, well I guess that's your weapon then, you da man.  But as I've experienced it from AIs in single player, it's the most incredibly cheap shot.  I mean that in every sense the phrase could be interpreted.

I'm willing to do a lot of mod shuffling to put things right, for my vision of single player.  It's coming along, I have a "modding" thread about what I'm doing.  I find the idea of "minimal" invasive surgery to accomplish the needed goals, ridiculous.  There's too much broken.  It all has to be rudely shaken and slammed down on the table again.  Simulated annealing, until it stops bleeding.

Likewise, the election is always a huge event. This kind of power should not be vested in any single particular thing to do.

So are you going to ban Lal too?  'Cuz he's vested.  The EG is your alternative to Lal.

Mods don't have to solve both problems at once.  A mod manager would be nice.  I've already started contemplating what programming language it would be best written in, and culturally, whether appropriate code already exists for Civ IV.  However a mod manager is also strictly unnecessary and a waste of my present development energies, which can go straight to actual modding.  Players can be told to install multiple copies of the game.  I've got 3 on my machine right now.  1 is my so-called "Realism" mod, a work in progress.

CBA - Aero Complexes have several unreported effects, of which the morale bonus may be very well the least important. They confer +100% bonus to air defence and prevent air drops.

Yeah, so do oceans.  Cry it to the Pirates.  If I want to drop Marines into the sea off the coast of Grenada to die, as the US military I should be jolly well able to do it.  At taxpayer expense, with some head shaking in the national news is all.

They help with (building and benefitting from) satellites.

But all you actually have to do is build 2x as many satellites to get the same benefit to a base without an Aerospace Complex.  Therefore, this ability is not a game breaker.  I've played plenty of games in single player where belting out piles of satellites makes no appreciable difference about anything.  To the point that I always look for better things to do first.

On the top of that, CBA gives that movement bonus (crucial for interceptions).

Yeah 14 instead of 12 movement for a fusion plane is a powerful advantage.  It lets you wipe out all new Alien cities with X planes without having to change your front lines any.

Up until Fusion Power, there are several key techs which force quite a strict beeline without the blind research.

So use blind research, the default of the game as it is supposed to be played.

A lot of my current modding is to attempt to rate techs for their actual value in the game: Explore, Discover, Build, Conquer.  Lots of things are really 1st class Conquer techs.  Doctrine:Mobility, clearly.  You get a Command Center and the 1st unit that can kill at a distance.  This isn't about exploration, this is about killing people.  I find the techs as actually useful, have piles of Conquer and Build.  Some Discover, very little Explore.  That's basically Deirdre mindworm stuff and nothing else can be rationalized on that basis.  Even then, those mindworms are useful for conquering.  We're just going to call them Exploring because Deirdre has this narrative role in the game.  If we throw out Planet and its indigenous life forms, we're not playing the same game anymore.  So we will have a little Explore.  I'm going to have to mod her faction priorities though, because nobody could play intelligently on a pure Explore platform with the mods I'm doing.  There aren't enough techs in the tree for that.

This is one of the biggest problems with the overall SMAC strategy. But messing with that may very well go beyond what Mart’s trying to accomplish here.

Yeah, more work to put things right, but I know this game like the back of my hand and I'm going to put them right.  It's only "how do these stupid AI factors actually work?" that's the rub.  Got a modding thread on that, nobody's answered so far.  I know that I can change the color representation of techs.  It remains to be seen if the AI will actually pick up on "this is really a Build tech" and plan accordingly.

In general, for MP games I would rip the air power apart.

Well per another thread, I want ICBMs.  You got Orbital Spaceflight?  Nuke anything on the planet.  Sputnik had this in 1957.  SMAC is a totally stupid game this way.  MAD should definitely be one of the endgames for everyone.  So that's how I "solve" your air power problem.  I want it eclipsed by Doomsday weapons.  We spend way too much time coddling all this "pew pew pew ground troops" stuff in every genre of science fiction.  Real futures use WMDs.

Remember also that introducing Probe Cruisers to the list of template units will actually make the AI build and use them.

Ugh but if I did that, I'd have to garrison my sea bases with the goddamn things too.  This gets so old.  The waves are my only respite from this very bad design.