Gameplay Video of Alien Crossfire

[Matzlaick]

Hello everyone, this is Matzlaick! After playing Alpha Centauri for years and years and years... and years(oh boy), I finally posted a gameplay video on you tube:

Since this my first ever video I know it is pretty rough around the edges and am looking for some feedback for ways to improve in the future.

[lolada]

Welcome! I am glad to see someone is posting youtube content, its quite lacking for this game. Format seems to be good as well as commentary, game goes on, seems like adequate level of explaining and playing through turns.

Skillwise, its a bit painful  , but i suppose the most important thing is that you enjoy the game otherwise there wouldn't be a video there at all.
Few quick suggestions:

- do not automate your formers - it takes some time and micro, but algorithm is very inefficient. For example your formers wasted ton of turns, one built a mine and a road there (thats 11 turns.. and mine is only 2 minerals) while you could just make road and avoid rocky tile and plant forest which is actually better tile than early mine. Then another farmed 2-1-0 rainy tile which also has no effect for a while. And all that led to not having connected bases and then your colony pods lost more turns going through rough terrain.

- you probably know this, but you can level (terraform action) that rocky square in the middle of monolith ruins and settle base there; also you can, and should, place 4 bases around monoliths on coast. Each one can work 2 or 3 monolith for awhile, and later you can switch them all to your center monolith base if you wish to have one super-base

- rushing - it costs double if first row is not filled completely; so its the best to rush it few turns in. Also that Network Node is really  a big waste of time and energy credits because your Sparta Commands produces 2 Labs - and with 50% its now only 3  . It also costs maintenance so its not even that good. NN is great when base is larger so that will pay of eventually. It is way better to just continue to spam colony pods until you get Recycling tanks and Recreation Commons. Anyway, its much better choice to rush Former units once first row of minerals is done (its usually 21-25 credits)

Guess thats enough advice for one post. Good luck with youtube, first video is quite good! 

[Matzlaick]

Yo lolada,

First off, thanks for the feedback. I was not expecting that much advice on gameplay itself, but it is solid and I am grateful you took the time to point all that out to me. Probably the reason why I didn't know much about terraforming is because I have never manually controlled my formers once I learned how to automate them (and that was a long time ago). Also, thanks for explaining how rushing works, glad to finally that bit of confusion out of the way with a solid answer. Now that I think about it, that's exactly how Civ 5 workers behave (may actually switch back to manual in both games).

I know that building the network nodes that early is often a waste, but whenever I play the Spartans they are often very far behind other players in terms of research so anytime I have an opportunity to advance I take it. Do you know of a better way? Like I said in the video I don't often play on Transcend so any advice is greatly appreciated!

One last thing. From what you have seen, how good is the AI at building orbital base facilities? In late game I spam those and I quickly outpace all other factions, even on Transcend. I may mod the script for those as well.

Thanks again!

[lolada]

You are welcome : ) thanks for the video.

Well network node will pay off eventually so it will work out. Better would be, in my opinion, at this point of time to build a colony pod and place a new base near monoliths. You would gain that +1 if not more research points with new base and it would be faster and cheaper to build. Network node give extra research after all.
Another option is to rush formers and get more farms-solar collectors and forests  faster - and that's extra research as well. For example you already rushed NN lots of credits and there's more needed to complete NN, so no gains yet. Former could be out faster by 4-6 turns if rushed and that's enough time to place a farm or solar collector.

The thing is, that its maybe not yet apparent, you will not be able to grow Sparta Command much on transcend - due to drone issues. So you can't really get more energy to put into NN bonus at least until you build Recreation Commons and allow base to grow more. Still, good choice to play on Transcend, unmodded AI is quite bad so lategame become too easy, this way it will be more interesting for viewers as well.

I didn't play much with unmodded AI in recent years from what i remember AI was awful at building orbital facilities. Bvanevery is playing AARs on forums, from what i know he uses vanilla AI - with .txt modding like you, and it appears AI builds some. But in general vanilla AI doesn't seem to know what to build and how to terraform well to be competitive. I usually refrain myself from spamming supply crawlers for example, or building too many satellites to make game more challenging.

If you find this game too easy, once you finish it you might take a look at Thinker AI improved mod (that one tries to not affect base game mechanics) and then there are other mods that change balance more - they seem to be quite good and fun. But yeah, go one thing at a time, play what you enjoy.

[bvanevery]

Do you know of a better way?

Yes.  Play my mod, where Biology Labs is a Discover 1 tech.  I'm expecting factions to build that first, because it gives a constant +2 LABS bonus, instead of being dependent on your base's economy of scale.  Network Node is a Discover 2 tech.

One last thing. From what you have seen, how good is the AI at building orbital base facilities?

Rather good.  If the AI has the infrastructure to do so, it will obsess about building Orbital Defense Pods, and it will shoot at your satellites.  I do not like trying to keep up with the AI's orbital obsession, as I get really bored and the AI never does.  I've learned to settle such problems with ground intervention.

I may mod the script for those as well.

Meaning what, you'd make them way more expensive, so you can't build them very fast?  That would have its limits.  It sounds like you're getting so far ahead of other factions, that nothing you do matters.

You could play my mod on Transcend, the setting I'm expecting people to play on, and see if it's as easy for you to get ahead.   

[Matzlaick]

Wat up bvanevery! So glad to have you on this thread!

I have played your mod to late game (not on transcend yet) and the amount of work you put into it is amazing! I wanted use SMACX as close to Vanilla as possible for the first few videos with that small adjustment.

In future videos I definitely want to explore some of the excellent mods on this site including 'SMACX AI Growth mod' (yours), 'SMAC in SMACX mod', 'SMACX Thinker Mod' and 'PlotinusRedux's GUI improvements and renderer for SMACX'. I have not yet played them, but I have started looking into installing a few.

Did you mean that the AI builds orbital facilities in good numbers for your mod or vanilla? I know they build some orbital defenses but by the time they have like 3 I launched dozens of power transmitters, hydroponics labs and orbital defenses for my faction. In one game I played using the same setup as the one in the video, I managed to outgrow the University even though they had the Cloning Vats.

Also, what did you think of the video? Anything you see in my presentation or game strategy that could use polish?

[bvanevery]

The AI will build good numbers of orbital facilities anytime it is sufficiently ahead to do so.  In vanilla, the problem is you're not challenged, you're crushing the AI.  You might be more challenged by my mod.  I don't know how good you actually are, one way or another.  Even I have trouble playing my own mod, every time I make a new set of changes, until I adjust.

My satellite sequence is Tier 6 Sky Hydroponics Labs, Tier 7 Orbital Defense Pods, Tier 8 Orbital Power Transmitters and Nessus Mining Stations (from different techs).  I actually didn't want the SHLs so early, but unfortunately the satellite attack UI is broken if they don't show up first.

Haven't watched your video yet.  Will do so tonight.

[bvanevery]

Ok I'm only a few minutes into the video.

For the record, I think getting a tech when you capture a base is sorta "Civ II cheating".  Especially if you play with Alien Crossfire, that's a specific power of the Cybernetic Consciousness.  Shouldn't be everybody's power.  That said, it's also pretty much useless in practice to them.

Playing without random events, is understandable.  They're a PITA.  The good ones are never as good as the bad ones are bad.  I particularly hate the energy market crash event, as it can wipe out thousands of credits for no good reason at all.  It'll tell you to build more energy banks, even when you have the Planetary Energy Grid!  Ridiculous.

I only belatedly realized you are playing with an entire view of the map.  To me that's such a cheat, I don't even know what the option to do that is!  Unless you're one of the Alien factions, in which case it's one of your faction powers that you get a map overview like that.

You totally went the wrong way with your 2nd colonist.  There was no possibility that that spit of land to the east, was a good base location.  Water never has benefits like that.  That location would also do nothing to advance your border, if someone had in fact been on the island.

Taking the pod on turn 1 was a little dangerous.  A mindworm could have popped out of it, and could have appeared right next to your empty city.  And then destroyed your city, or at least your HQ.  Don't think I've ever actually done it to myself, so I don't know for sure what happens when you only have a HQ.

I don't think Stockpiling Energy at the beginning of the game was a wise move.  You need to scout your surroundings, which means you need to produce Scouts.  They're the cheapest.  You had the SUPPORT for 2 Scout units but you only built 1.  It would be better to walk Scouts through fungal patches, because a Rover can't go any faster, and if the Scout dies it's easily replaced.  Your Rovers have either been given to you at the start of the game, or you got them from supply pods.  They are more precious and you should do nothing to endanger them.  I use them to pop pods on flat or rolling terrain only, stopping the turn before next to the pod, so that I can react if there's a mindworm.  Rocky terrain and fungus, I send Scouts on suicide missions.  That's their job.

Ok let's see how it goes, despite your opening mistakes.   

[lolada]

- Yeah that colony pod movement was eghm misdirected    .

- I pretty much never use stockpile energy - for example i would have built a scout and moved it to settling location so when colony pod creates a base - you can support that scout from new base so you don't have to build one. Then first build would be Former that can be insta-rushed for 20 credits. Thats ton of turns gained over few stockpiled energy credits.

- not sure about those unity pods - can they be harmful in hq radius!? i thought it was mistake not to pop them because pods in hq radius reveal resources usually - and he did get a monolith there - but he popped it very late unfortunately.

- as for custom rules i guess anything goes ^^ i am glad its Transcend as playing on lower difficulty is really meaningless - i searched youtube before several times and i couldn't find any good let's play. When i see people play on Talent its so sad. Also automating formers is big oh-no for me ^^.

Are there any good youtube alpha centauri channels, or on twitch, high-skilled one?

[lolada]

double post ups

[Matzlaick]

bvanevery

For the record, I think getting a tech when you capture a base is sorta "Civ II cheating".

Yeah I can see how that can be the case. My thinking was that military units could hack into base servers and get tech before the computers were secured. I actually don't normally play with that rule though, I wanted to find new ways to change up the equation.

I only belatedly realized you are playing with an entire view of the map.

Perhaps I will go full dark for a future video. It will probably be a good idea and give a little extra challenge.

Both you and lolada pointed out the colony pod misstep and not getting the resource pods right away. All I will say on this is: you both right. I guess juggling the video and commenting made it a little more difficult thinking strategically. I will get better though!

lolada

I pretty much never use stockpile energy

I haven't either for the longest time. Only recently have I been using it because of the lack of base facilities to build and not needing more units. It actually saved me a lot of trouble with drone riots at the bases growing a little to fast to quickly build the necessary facilities. We'll see though.

I also did a quick search on twitch and didn't really find much in the way of content. Mostly really long archived streams. They also had fewer views than my video as of this reply and were posted about a month or so ago. The others are years old.

Thanks again lolada and bvanevery! The sooner I get these issues, both in video delivery and tactical gameplay fixed, the better.

[Matzlaick]

I have another video to share! Sorry it took a while, editing was a little more difficult than anticipated. Anyway, please let me know what you all think and as usual any tips on improvements are greatly appreciated.

[Nexii]

Try Transcend!

[bvanevery]

Good job; I wanna see you get creamed by Needlejets.     Well who knows how it'll go.

[Matzlaick]

Try Transcend!

If you mean game difficulty then yes I am playing on Transcend.

Good job; I wanna see you get creamed by Needlejets.

Like mosquitos blotting out the sky, but with guns!
Where's my spray can?