Restricting economical growth

[Nexii]

I think they were just trying to show off their new world engine that had altitude as a thing. It was groundbreaking at the time. Though Civ2 had it better, pollution went on the ground and it impacted production as I recall. That is one consideration for fungus. It's not really 'pollution' in the late game, it could create a productive tile. Though I suppose all the native life it can spawn kinda does the trick.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Not going to touch crawlers for now because it is a can of worms. Besides everything else it would require to retune AI to not use them for convoy. Ugh. Probably the only clean and easy way to do it is to disable them altogether. Anybody would cry about it?

Making them more expensive kinda alleviated problem a bit and that seems to do the trick. At least I don't spam them anymore.

[Nexii]

Yitzi's patch had a thing where you could put in a flat penalty to crawling resources. It sort of kicks the can down the road to advanced terraforming, a % mod might have been more useful. Ideally I still say 1 crawler per base, or per X population. Maybe large bases or ones with certain advanced facilities should be able to crawl more. There's also options to crawl all 3 resources from a single crawler which was interesting and powerful. Probably similarly, a % for crawler turnin to SP would have been a nice feature. Even 100% is exploitable with raising and lowering INDUSTRY. Each crawler would have to store its cost which I imagine would be a huge undertaking. Though by doing so it would eliminate the upgrade and turn in exploits too.

Crawling a lot in the base game should cause a lot of ecodamage shouldn't it? Since CMs is only 16. I guess maybe Tree Farms come too soon and avoid that problem..

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Surprisingly, +50% facilities round bonus up. Anybody knew that?

[Nexii]

Yea even Punishment Spheres. When I made a Punishment Spheres faction I had to give them +1 labs a base. Otherwise the rounding down was brutal in the early game. On some maps the AI would start with 0 labs and then they would never research anything.

[lolada]

- About forests and 12 turns build time - it does looks excessive. I usually put 2 formers together when i want some forest early. The thing is that in WTP at least - resource yields are unlocked - so forests are not mandatory. Its often better just to place a mine at start (4 resources compared to 3 of forest) because first bases you start and settle near nutrient resources. That way base ends up working for example 4-1 nutrient tile (add solar later) and 0-4-0 mine and spams colony pods for a while. Some growth micro might be required. So 12 turns doesn't hurt in the mod much. But yeah i wouldn't mind having it build in 6 or 8 turns as well - the point is you don't want too much 1-2-0 forest anyway, its not that good. Few tactical forest are enough and then they spread - sometimes you want to remove them -_-.

- Fungus experiment - maybe we can experiment with no minerals. I like some extra food because then one can, coupled with Recycling tanks, work a mine or borehole for minerals. And fungus eveything - what i have been doing  - won't be good idea anymore. The Manifold Harmonics adds 1-1-2 at 3 planet.. sa say you get it between Tech 6 and 9 it will turn tiles into 3-0-3 + 1-1-2 = 4-1-5.. good but still not op as now.At tech 9 its 5-1-5 and final is 5-1-6. Gaians will end up with 6-1-6.
It looks interesting - it does still look very heavy on energy.. and all this food might be worked on extra specialist and teching will be very fast. Maybe limit it at 4-0-3 instead of 4-0-4.. i think it would be good idea to reduce amount of energy in game. And then it needs to be playtested ofc.

- No forests on arid tiles - that would be interesting ^^ i guess one could place condenser first and then forest everything  . Thinker AI is crazy whole map turns green eventually once they get to spam condensers and boreholes.
- That Echelon Mirror idea is interesting - making it say 4 or 6 energy. I suppose it would be interesting to try something with it.

 

[Nexii]

Solars can be boosted by more than one Echelon Mirror. So usually you want to do 50/50 or maybe a bit less. Typically your solars will get +3 or so. At high altitude that can be 4-(0.5)-7 or so. But the Echelon tiles only get to 4-(0.5)-4, so it averages out at 4-(0.5)-(5.5) or so. The main thing that holds farm/solar back is that it takes a very long time to terraform. Farm, enricher, solar or echelon, plus a lot of raising the terrain and paying energy on top of that. That's why no one does it really even though it's the most powerful per tile. Especially if you drop borehole down.

Yea the specialists are why I say 1N is a bit better than 1E. When one specialist can make 8E (2 psy, 4 labs, 2 econ) that isn't even diminished by bad efficiency, that's quite strong. At a cost of 2N, so maybe 6E net. It's more that specialists don't require a terraformed tile I think. The cost to terraform is quite a bit, plus you need the empire space.

[lolada]

I think i'll see if i can put some Echelon Mirrors to use i started a quick Morgan game.. he should be perfect for that. I also wanted to play with forests more.

I find it that terraforming fungus is really no issue. If you are green faction (Gaians, Planet) you naturally pick up special projects like Xenoempathy Dome and there's double plant/remove fungus ability there and it turns the action into 3 turns only. Then there are also superformers.. and with fleet of formers it doesnt take too long to terraform whole continent. I always have at least 1 former per base and bases go 20+ in count so it all goes quickly. Unfortunately there's no automated plant fungus action  there's one for remove fungus - pictures devs intent.

Plant fungus is available sometime in midgame - definitely not early so fungus can't be used early as much. it has that downside compared to forests.

[bvanevery]

Probably the only clean and easy way to do it is to disable them altogether. Anybody would cry about it?

I'd be conservative about completely removing crawlers from the game.  I don't personally use them at all anymore, preferring instead to build up huge piles of cash to buy SPs.  This is partially because I made crawlers so much later in my mod, it curbs the tendency.  But that's only speaking for me personally. 

Various SMAC players do use crawlers.  Moreover, Thinker Mod trains players to abuse crawlers, showing how the AI does it.  You share an audience with Thinker Mod since you have most of the same codebase.  I don't know how much that really matters, but if players actually liked what Thinker Mod is offering, maybe they don't like removing crawlers and nerfing boreholes.  I don't know how representative any of these tendencies are, among players.  I just know that I chose to delay and make more expensive, rather than remove.

Strongly diversifying the tech research foci, does let the AI begin SPs before I can get a chance to.  And then they often finish them before I can do anything about it, at least through midgame.  So although the stock binary doesn't exhibit "super brains" with crawlers and SPs, I do at least partially have it more challenging to get SPs done.  Without having had to take crawlers completely out of the game.

[bvanevery]

- No forests on arid tiles - that would be interesting ^^ i guess one could place condenser first and then forest everything  . Thinker AI is crazy whole map turns green eventually once they get to spam condensers and boreholes.

Sure, but I don't allow Condensers or Boreholes until the beginning of the late game.  I did this very exactly because of Thinker Mod's abuse, thinking that someone might try to combine my mod with Thinker Mod.  Also because it made me aware just what an exploit a human player can make out of it.  The only way around my restriction is to get the Weather Paradigm.  Of course a human can always do that if they really really want to, but at least in my mod, they will definitely be sacrificing some other SP to achieve it.

My idea is that if someone combined my work with Thinker Mod, it would be possible to assault someone over land before they got a chance to get all those Condensers and Boreholes going.  You can get a long way with rails, which come fairly early in my mod.  Hovertanks could be coming at the beginning of the late game too, if you're focused on Conquer, plus cross-listed with Explore.  So build tanks and crush that stupid exploiting AI before it gets too piggy....

[bvanevery]

Plant fungus is available sometime in midgame - definitely not early so fungus can't be used early as much. it has that downside compared to forests.

This is controlled in the #TERRAIN table.  In the stock game it comes at Tier 3 with Ecological Engineering.  In my mod for some reason I changed it to Centauri Genetics, which is also Tier 3 and it's when I give mindworms and spore launchers.  I've gone back and forth about whether E.E. is an Explore or a Build tech.  I've currently got Fungicidal Tanks available with E.E., to make it a little more difficult to remove fungus until the midgame is getting underway.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

- About forests and 12 turns build time - it does looks excessive. I usually put 2 formers together when i want some forest early. The thing is that in WTP at least - resource yields are unlocked - so forests are not mandatory. Its often better just to place a mine at start (4 resources compared to 3 of forest) because first bases you start and settle near nutrient resources. That way base ends up working for example 4-1 nutrient tile (add solar later) and 0-4-0 mine and spams colony pods for a while. Some growth micro might be required. So 12 turns doesn't hurt in the mod much. But yeah i wouldn't mind having it build in 6 or 8 turns as well - the point is you don't want too much 1-2-0 forest anyway, its not that good. Few tactical forest are enough and then they spread - sometimes you want to remove them -_-.

Exactly! Forest is not mandatory. Moreover it is discouraged. It is not a best solution even with facilities anymore. However, it is a good alternative option for quite poor lands.
You answered this question yourself. Why you at all need it in a first base which is supposed to be at least moderately descent with some moist squares and rocks?
Any number of turns for forest is nothing as it will spread by itself later on. I was thinking about stopping its spreading. If I do then I'll reduce it to 8. However, as you correctly pointed out, it is not relevant anymore. Nobody would want it everywhere.

- Fungus experiment - maybe we can experiment with no minerals. I like some extra food because then one can, coupled with Recycling tanks, work a mine or borehole for minerals. And fungus eveything - what i have been doing  - won't be good idea anymore. The Manifold Harmonics adds 1-1-2 at 3 planet.. sa say you get it between Tech 6 and 9 it will turn tiles into 3-0-3 + 1-1-2 = 4-1-5.. good but still not op as now.At tech 9 its 5-1-5 and final is 5-1-6. Gaians will end up with 6-1-6.
It looks interesting - it does still look very heavy on energy.. and all this food might be worked on extra specialist and teching will be very fast. Maybe limit it at 4-0-3 instead of 4-0-4.. i think it would be good idea to reduce amount of energy in game. And then it needs to be playtested ofc.

Interesting how we think alike and in same direction! 😀
It's already done. See my latest version and description.
https://github.com/tnevolin/thinker-doer#fungus-production-guidelines

As for reducing energy yield a little - I don't mind that. Pick any one or two energy steps in a table and we can skip it.

- No forests on arid tiles - that would be interesting ^^ i guess one could place condenser first and then forest everything  . Thinker AI is crazy whole map turns green eventually once they get to spam condensers and boreholes.

Exactly. Stupid idea. What are you going to do with dunes?

- That Echelon Mirror idea is interesting - making it say 4 or 6 energy. I suppose it would be interesting to try something with it.

What idea? Did I miss something?

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Solars can be boosted by more than one Echelon Mirror. So usually you want to do 50/50 or maybe a bit less. Typically your solars will get +3 or so. At high altitude that can be 4-(0.5)-7 or so. But the Echelon tiles only get to 4-(0.5)-4, so it averages out at 4-(0.5)-(5.5) or so. The main thing that holds farm/solar back is that it takes a very long time to terraform. Farm, enricher, solar or echelon, plus a lot of raising the terrain and paying energy on top of that. That's why no one does it really even though it's the most powerful per tile. Especially if you drop borehole down.

It's already mathematically proven that the best echelon configuration is to interchange stripes of solars with stripes of echelons. This way each solar is adjacent to 6 echelons so it gets +6 energy. However, since there are only half of them, the average bonus is only +3 per each tile in a energy field. So +3 is max you can get on average. In practice it is impossible to place them like that due to other improvements, rocks, etc. So I usually estimate it as +2 averaged across whole empire.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Plant fungus is available sometime in midgame - definitely not early so fungus can't be used early as much. it has that downside compared to forests.

It is pretty abundant (about 50% coverage) early and your bases are not big. So you really does not loose anything by not planting it.

[lolada]

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What idea? Did I miss something?
Maybe make Echelon produce 4 energy fixed.. it can have farm below. So in theory one could spam a few of these, have some food on its own square as well - so they are supported, and get good energy base. They will boost some solar collectors around - but its not a waste if it boosts only 2-3. It would produce for example total of 7-8 base energy. Now that you nerfed boreholes to 0-4-4 it looks even better. Fixed energy amount would mean that you don't have to bother with altitude and terrain for Echelon Mirror.

Its liki mini solar farm on say 4 tiles. I've seen some screenshots of dedicated solar farms but its impractical (that optimal scenario you described)- takes a lot of space and i presume nobody really uses it unless its some fun experiment. T-Hawk did it in one of his showcase games.