The Thinker mod mindworm apocalypse

[bvanevery]

I proved in another thread that SMAC grossly cheats on AI eco-damage.

Details for me this does 25 eco damage

for me this does 25 eco damage

After taking over, I identified the worst offending city.  I certainly didn't see anything doing 25 eco-damage before.

Details for the AI this does 8 eco damage

for the AI this does 8 eco damage

Then I switched it back. Eco-damage drops by a factor of 3X!

The game cheats like a mad dog.  For eco-damage, it gives special dispensation to the AI factions.  Now in the stock game, not such a big deal, since the AI isn't that good at terraforming.  But Thinker mod is built to exploit terraforming to the hilt.  I will say unwittingly, it has leveraged a huge exploit in the AI's favor.

So now I'm going to test, just how bad is it?  I will try to ape the AI play style of Thinker mod.  I'm going to get eco-damage, mindworms, and flooding that the AI won't.  Can I survive it?  Can I thrive?  Just how bad is a 3X eco-damage difference anyways?  And if I do survive, are my choices so severely constrained that it's not basically a fun game to play anymore?

I will be using my SMACX AI Growth mod for this test.  I'm going to stack the deck in my favor by picking a PLANET friendly faction, to minimize my inherent eco-damage.  That's either the Gaians or the Cult of Planet.  Narratively, the Cult of Planet is the completely cynical and righteous way to do this! Cha Dawn could easily be a big fat liar and totally willing to build as many boreholes as will make him rich.  Sounds like a recipe for my total ultimate success.  Mindworms away!

I will put the Pirates in the game, because they are clearly the benchmark for economic runaway in my mod.  Unlike the stock game, they are Passive and pursue Wealth.  Well, sitting back and availing yourself of all those free sea minerals, that nobody else gets, is a super strategy.  It's so super, that I've made the least mods to the Pirate abilities of any faction.  Sea minerals are that good!

And, if the world floods, the Pirates will be there to benefit greatly.  Double reason to have them.

Otherwise, factions are selected at random.  Huge map, 30%..50% land mass, average settings, Transcend difficulty.  My world generator has much more continental land masses, no tiny islands, and always plenty of ocean for Pirates to expand into.  Thinker mod also improves faction initial placement so that they don't immediately step on each other's toes.

The Hive, Gaians, Caretakers, Usurpers, and Data Angels show up in the game.  I know the Angels are particularly dangerous when multiple factions are going gangbusters, such as will happen in Thinker mod.  In my mod, they get any techs known to 3 factions, without needing to infiltrate them.  It was never fair to make the AI factions infiltrate because they could never do it in the real world, so I made it easier for them.

The Hive is dangerous because in my mod, they start with +1 POLICE.  Once they learn Police State they can do +3 POLICE and get 2x effective police units.  They can make really big cities that way, no need for expensive infrastructure.  Justice penalties (Efficiency by any other name) are painful, but they've got the police to suppress everything.

I don't know how well the Gaians will do.  They're not weak, they get free Biology Labs in my mod, but they haven't been especially impressive in 2 previous plays of Thinker mod.  That falls to the Pirates.  So in this scenario, I expect the Pirates and the Angels to be the dominant factions, possibly the Hive but unsure.

Unless of course I am way cool!  All your mindworm are belong to us.

[bvanevery]

Details my precious borehole

my precious borehole

I have started next to the Borehole Complex.  I will endeavor to exploit them ruthlessly.  I have shamelessly blown off the default faction research priorities in favor of Build.  I've also decided I'll be none too picky about colony spread, apeing more of the Thinker mod Infinite City Sprawl style of city placement.  I observed that at least on rainy land, cities could get pretty big without having a perfect spread radius.  And Condensers can make any land into rainy land.

[bvanevery]

MY 2117.  I research Information Networks.  It's a weight 4 Discover tech, and a weight 3 Conquer tech.  Weird thing to get when I'm researching Build.  Makes me wonder if Thinker mod is messing with the research weights.

MY 2129.  I encounter the Data Angels' probe team to the west.  We sign a Treaty and they offer the commlink of the Hive.  We trade techs and sign a Pact.  We're all on a large "dogleg" land mass.  The Data Angels have possession of the Garland Crater.  The Hive is south of them.  I am far to the northeast of both.

MY 2131.  I have met the Usurpers to the east, but we can't talk yet.  I sign a Pact with the Data Angels and buy Doctrine: Flexibility from them.

MY 2133.  Popping a pod, I manage to compete a Rover Former prototype.  I had this weird city that wanted to work a Borehole and didn't have any food for growth.  So I just set the prototype up, hoping it would complete at some point.

MY 2136.  Roze obtains a map of Usurper territory.  They're on a big land sprawl east of me.  No one else sighted.  The Usurpers are the dominant power on the graph and I am in last place.

[bvanevery]

MY 2140.  The Data Angels stole Synthetic Fossil Fuels from me, so I renounce our Pact.  This causes some of my units to come home, but I don't mind.  They had cleared out most of the stuff anyways, and I can use them as mindworm police.

Details a nexus of conflict

a nexus of conflict

MY 2143.  I have found the Manifold Nexus.  Something to fight over.  My colony spreading has been slow due to lack of food.  That will change soon as I did pop some nutrients.

I feel my settlement pattern has been dictated by the Borehole Complex and nearby resources, rather than any a priori notion of ICS.  Covering nutrients and minerals with 1 city is the priority.  Otherwise one just ends up with a borehole or big mine that can't be worked for lack of food.

[bvanevery]

MY 2148.  The Angels are really being mindless dicks!  They subverted one of my Scout Rovers.  I've declared war.  I ask Yang to join me in the war, and he won't!  Dicks all around.  What good is he if he won't do my fighting for me?

Details cheating or something else

cheating or something else

Ok, I'm in a bit of wonderment at the Usurper colony spread pattern.  I know they start with 3 colony pods, but 13 cities?  I've got 4.  Roze has 6.  Yang has 10.  I do have 1 city that hasn't produced any food at all.

[bvanevery]

MY 2159.  I'm in a standoff with the Angels' probe team, although I think it will move wrong next turn and I'll be able to kill it.  I've almost met the Pirates.  On the graph they're doing as badly as I am, go figure.  I am building lots of Rover Formers because I've got long distances I need to cross to claim the Manifold Nexus.

MY 2160.  I sign a Pact with the Pirates.

Details not the game I wanted to test

not the game I wanted to test

MY 2163.  This is boring.  I didn't want to test whether I could make war with an overpowered neighbor.  How the hell is he managing 19 cities in such a short period of time?  I need to get clarity on those nutrient modifiers.  This is a reality of Thinker mod quite apart from eco-damage.  The Usurpers are simply going nuts and I need to know why.

Roze has 10 cities.  Yang has 14.  Pirates have 9.  I only have 7 but they are well placed for resources.  Well they would be, if Marr wasn't about to wipe one of them.  Hope mindworm intervention is sufficient.  I can't make them yet, they're just some field units I sent home.

I'm clearly not going to get to sit around and build anything.   Switching to Explore, to get mindworm tech.

Actually, no, I'm just quitting.  I think there is something "wrong" with the Usurpers having this much of an early spread advantage.  I'm not sure what.  Last time around, I figured out that the game is cheating about eco-damage.  Maybe something else is going on here.

[bvanevery]

Turned on the Scenario Editor to diagnose this game.

Usurpers are Fundamentalist Simple Survival.  In my mod they get +1 GROWTH for Simple economy.  If they hadn't chosen some Politics, they would have gotten -1 GROWTH from Frontier to balance that out, but they've chosen Fundamentalist.  Usurpers have a pure Conquer focus.  They do directed research, but will presumably pick Conquery stuff more than anything else.  Their tech doesn't look aberrant at all from other games I've played, they seem to be researching Conquer stuff like expected.

The Caretakers also have 19 cities.  The Caretakers and Usurpers are on the same large North-South land mass.  The Usurpers are way in the north, the Caretakers are way in the south, and the Monsoon Jungle is midway between them.  Possibly, they might come into direct land conflict eventually.  The Pirates might encroach into the middle and gain the Monsoon Jungle, seeing as how they're more land oriented in Thinker mod than the stock binary.

The Gaians have a long east-west island to themselves, south of the Hive.  They have 12 cities.

The simplest explanation is that having the Aliens start with 3 colony pods, is overpowered in Thinker mod.  In the stock game, it is not a problem because the AI is not that competent about early spread.  Add competence, and now the Aliens have 50% better starting empires than anyone else.  Starting a few turns later clearly doesn't offset this.

The AI continues to multiply the advantage and just clobbers people.  Bear in mind, in my mod I seriously defanged the Aliens as well.  They are no more powerful than any other faction.  Yet now, the simple fact of starting with 3 colony pods, turns them back into monsters.

A workaround is not to play the game with Aliens in it.  That is unsatisfying.

[bvanevery]

The Caretakers are Frontier Socialist Survival.  They get -1 GROWTH for Frontier and +2 GROWTH for Socialist, netting +1 GROWTH just like the Usurpers.  Their research interests are Explore, Conquer.  They can do directed research, but their techs are typical of a faction with these foci.

Details Caretaker AI nutrients with Thinker mod

Caretaker AI nutrients with Thinker mod

The Caretaker capitol is size 2.  The nutrient requirements are 3 rows, 7 nutrients per row.  That's in synch with Induktio saying the "cost factor" on Transcend is 7.

Details my nutrients with Thinker mod

my nutrients with Thinker mod

My own capitol's nutrients are 3 rows, 10 nutrients per row.  That's consistent with my "cost factor" being 10.  That's 100%, "normal" cost.  Caretakers only pay 70% cost because I'm playing on Transcend.

I save the game, quit, and open it again using the stock binary and my SMACX AI Growth mod.  The screenshots for nutrients are identical.  Just to be doubly sure, I inspect size 2 cities in some other saved games that used the stock binary, just in case anything could be put in the .sav file to mess with stuff.  My cities vs. AI cities is exactly the same.  So, Induktio is correct, he's implemented the same behavior and proportions as the stock binary.

[bvanevery]

My conclusion is, not to play Thinker mod with the standard cost factor for Transcend.  The 70% production break for the AI, was given because the stock AI isn't all that competent.  Thinker mod is plenty competent at resource management and early colony spread.  It doesn't need to be put on steroids, that just results in a miserable game IMO.

If I played on Librarian difficulty, the cost factor would be back to 100%.  However it also makes drones way easier to manage, and I don't want that.  I want the same rules I've been playing with on Transcend all these years, just no resource buffs.  Best course of action is to change the cost_factor entry from 7 to 10 in thinker.ini.

I don't know if RESEARCH speed is affected by this setting.

At the time of this writing, the AI will still be unfairly blessed with a 3X eco-damage reduction.  So, playing against it could still suck.  But at least it won't double suck, with buffs piled upon buffs.

Alien spread could still suck, due to 3 starting colony pods.  We'll see.  If it does, then I'll play without Aliens, until it is addressed somehow.

After changing thinker.ini, I load a saved game to verify that the new setting actually takes effect.  It does.  AI rows for nutrients are now 10 by default.  I notice that adding a Children's Creche reduces a row's length by 2.  In other words, equivalent to +2 GROWTH.  GROWTH modifiers also shorten the rows by whatever the social engineering settings are.  Everything looks ok to retry my debacle.

[bvanevery]

New game.  AI will pay the same production and nutrient costs as I do.  AI still has the 3X eco-damage advantage.  I'm Cha Dawn again.  Pirates are in, other factions at random.  Caretakers and Usurpers show up, so we're going to find out how much production parity affects their 3 colony spread.  And whether closeness or distance governs how much of a PITA the Aliens are.  Spartans, Data Angels, and Believers are also in the game.  Worth noting that both Spartans and Believers have Aggressive personalities in my mod, as do the Usurpers.  Since last game was such a defensive debacle, I think I'd better stick to the Cult's default research focus of Explore, Conquer to start with.  Boreholes can wait.  Maybe everyone will just make wars and eventually I'll steal the tech from the Pirates?

MY 2108.  I'm only settling my capitol now.  Had some pods to pop.  Got an artifact and a monolith.  2nd colonist is heading for the nearby Garland Crater.

MY 2113.  I settle on the outer rim of the Crater.  I couldn't remember if settling the exact center of the Crater was minerals efficient or not.  That's what you do with Mt. Planet, as you can't otherwise modify the mouth of a volcano.  So, my colony cranking is not great at this point, but my area spread is good.

MY 2115.  Usurper Scout.  Joy.  Well I'm not repeating what happened last time.

MY 2119.  Near the Usurper Scout, I walk into some fungus and stir up a mindworm larva.  I have odds verification on all the time, so I use the exploit of trying to capture it.  If capture fails, you get the odds verification, and a chance to call off the assault.  I back off, hoping the larva will go after the Usurper Scout on an adjacent fungal patch instead of me.

MY 2120.  The larva doesn't go after either of us.  It just mills.  I will ignore it and get away.  Maybe it will yet attack the Usurpers.

MY 2121.  Looks like there was a fight.  I see 2 Cloaked Usurper Scouts now.  In my mod, you get cloaks from Field Modulation.  Aliens start the game with this capability.  I think it fits the lore.  I also think cloaks are pretty useless, at least in the hands of the stock AI.  I did add a Cloaked Laser Rover predefined unit to my mod, and the AI does make somewhat annoying use of that unit throughout the game.  They can show up and randomly kill Formers and such.  Cloaked Scouts are far less dangerous, but a quirk is, you can't stop them from advancing towards you.  Not without a whole lot of covering units.

It's probably in my best interest to get Synthmetal Armor ready immediately.  In my mod, prototypes are very expensive, 3X usual cost.  Getting prototypes done is a real problem, especially at the beginning of the game like this.  I could pop an Artifact, that's a reliable way to do it.  Another way is to start production on a prototype and hope that popping a pod completes it.

I'm going to try that.  I dutifully design the armored Scout Skirmisher, which doesn't actually cost any more than a Scout Rover and would get both armor and the Speeder chassis done.  I hope my choice doesn't turn out to be foolish, with only 2 cities so far and a 3rd about to be settled.  But there are a lot of pods in the area, and I'll only have a "front line" of pods with any particular city for so long.

MY 2124.  It worked!

MY 2125.  In fact, it worked a 2nd time.  I forgot to change production before popping another pod.  I can actually use 2 of these things, I'm not complaining.

[bvanevery]

MY 2129.  I'm encountering a fair number of dimensional rifts.  One of them put me in Spartan territory.  We trade techs and sign a Treaty.  They are immediate southeast neighbors.  I wasn't wrong about needing to research Explore, Conquer.  Both of these could breathe down my neck, which is saying a lot on a Huge map with extra continental land mass.

Details you are most unwelcome

you are most unwelcome

MY 2132.  Marr shows up with a Battle Ogre in my home territory.  I'm not at all happy about that.  It might pass through, but I can't take the chance of letting it get next to my cities.  At least Ogres are wimpier in my mod than in the stock game.  Resonance Lasers are only strength 3 in my mod.  Ogres have pretty good armor and anti-mindworm buffs, but even just 2 wild mindworms will generally take an Ogre apart.  If I can get it to wander on, it'll die in the wild somewhere.

Thinking about it, cities do function as strong points in my mod.  I already have an untrained Synthmetal Scout in 1 city, and I can put one in the other city now too.  Probably best to see if he'll walk right between my cities.  If he does attack a city, he'll probably take a lot of damage, about the best I could expect.  Getting a Sensor Array done will help as well, if he doesn't attack immediately.

I feel threatened, so instead of continuing with colony pods, I start a Command Center in my capitol, and a Transport on my coastal base.  That leaves me with only 1 city at the Garland Crater producing a colony.  It'll have to carry the empire.  This is the stress reality of having a dangerous neighbor right on top of me.  And knowing there's a 2nd nearby.  It's not really what I expect on a Huge map, but it can happen.

[bvanevery]

MY 2134.  I've gotten a lot of money from popping pods and killing mindworms, so I rush my Command Center.

MY 2135.  The Ogre appears to be heading south.

Details oh it's tempting

oh it's tempting

MY 2137.  I have the opportunity to walk in on the Usurper capitol.  Should I?  Part of me wants to know if the Usurpers are "all that" when they have to pay the same minerals and nutrients that I do.  I'm going to leave them alone.  The graph says we're nearly equal in power, and I'd make a better offense connecting all my cities together.

MY 2139.  For a time, I forgot that Santiago could be a tech trading partner.  But now she's Seething so I guess not!

Details quit yer scoutin

quit yer scoutin

MY 2141.  A Cloaked Scout is still in my backyard.  Well I've got a Scout in his backyard too.  I guess it's fair.  Better than an Ogre.  I've got a solid defense against Scouts now.

[bvanevery]

Details Planet 1 Usurpers 0

Planet 1 Usurpers 0

MY 2144.  I think the Ogre killed itself on a fungal tower.  I thought about having a followup to kill it myself, but I've been too busy either exploring or defending.  Some other time.

MY 2145.  Santiago and I trade techs and sign a Pact.  I've got the Usurpers completely behind the 8 ball, so they could get hostile.  I'd like to have a safe rear when wiping them out.

MY 2146.  I mistake a Spartan probe team for the Data Angels.  My bad.  Guess there gonna get some intel on the Usurpers.  Not a bad idea, but I've been too busy with other stuff.

[bvanevery]

MY 2147.  I do a dick move on my buddy the Spartans, letting a mindworm live that will likely kill his wounded Scout next turn.  All so I can get the next supply pod instead of him!  What are friends for.

MY 2162.  I finally learn Progenitor Psych.  Let's see what my neighbors have to say for themselves!  Hmm, ignoring my transmissions.  Mkaaaay...

I've all but emptied this continent of supply pods.  I have a fair amount of money.  I don't particularly have anything worth spending it on, so I'm just hoarding.  Except for the chunk of change I loaned to Santiago.  I'm starting to build Recreation Commons to boost my workers and productivity.  I think I've got enough cities to keep the Usurpers at bay.  I haven't brought most of my mindworms back, so I only have a limited number of worm police.  Many are now trying to explore the poles.

Details and here it is

and here it is

MY 2163.  That was pathetic.  They couldn't even scratch my Scout.  The AI may not understand that the Sensor Array bonus is 50% in my mod.  However, it should understand that standing on a forest gives me extra defense.  Once my mindworms get back, these guys are gonna be so dead.  Well, probably not offensively dead, but anything they send against me is gonna be suicide for them.

[bvanevery]

MY 2165.  The Usurpers attempt to get a probe team in range, but I have a Synthmetal Scout, so I whack him.  I've made the assumption that he doesn't have a 2nd probe team right behind it.  If I'm wrong, I'd probably save scum my turn, because I don't feel like losing a base over this.

MY 2166.  Note to the smart ones of the class.  Do not attack a Synthmetal Scout with your Scout.  You will lose.

Huh, Cloaked Scouts almost got my Former.  I had a new Synthmetal Scout produced, so started moving and got blocked by his invisible scouts.

MY 2167.  Wow, that AI sure is dumb about attacking cities with Synthmetal using Scouts.  Although in fairness, it did damage me 30%.  I've seen an offensive of many Scouts take out Synthmetal before.

MY 2168.  I attack an enemy Scout in a city, and am quite surprised when my mindworm dies.  I guess base defense goes both ways.  I'll have to feed my mindworms some victims so they get bigger.  I also need to get some probe team defense going.

MY 2172.  I meet the Caretakers.  They have a sea base just off the Usurper coast.  I wonder if that's been stressing the Usurpers out?  Well, maybe it's just more difficult to make those jazzy bases when you have to pay full price for everything.  I buy E3 Centauri Genetics for 275 credits, but it's what gives mindworms, so worth it to me.  I'm sure the Caretakers have more but they signed off.  No Treaty, but they're not hostile right now.  Maybe they'll attack the Usurpers usefully?