Turning SMAX back into strategy game

[bvanevery]

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.

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.

Details evade

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.

Details hold your fire

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.

Details jock strap of invincibility

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.
 
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.

[bvanevery]

Details capturing strength

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.

[bvanevery]

Details easy hunting

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!

[bvanevery]

Details tough tractors

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.

[bvanevery]

Details lucky for them

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.

[bvanevery]

Details cheap substitution

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.

[bvanevery]

Details all the good attacking does

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.

[bvanevery]

New game.  Pirates out and Usurpers out, Hive and University in.  I play the latter.  I figure that once I get Knowledge, I become a +1 PLANET faction.  I've also found that Green Knowledge is a common pattern for the University, because it keeps the POLICE penalty to -1.

Details slaughtering colonists

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.

Details Noncombat -25%

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. 

Details die like you should

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.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

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.

Should it be different for other factions? PLANET works on the offence only so any other faction has same worm survivability.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

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.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

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.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

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.

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.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

When I initially redistributed weapon/armor/reactor across technology tree I was just reassigned them to the technology that was in a right place. Now I think it is much more elegant to keep technology assignments but relink them inside of the tree instead. This way they keep their well known association with military items but appear at desired point in time.

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.

[bvanevery]

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.

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10,      ; Combat % -> Psi attack bonus/penalty per +PLANET
The Gaians in my mod also have a (PSI, 20) bonus which seems to be for offense and defense.

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;   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.

[bvanevery]

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.

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.