Thinking about Pirates

[bvanevery]

I haven't played Thinker mod in forever.  I've played tons of The Will To Power, having adopted an informal mission to give it the playtesting feedback it needs.  WTP is derived from Thinker, and I'm unclear how differently they actually play.  I can consistently trash WTP now.  It's down to formula, and the subject of some items in its Issue Tracker.  I'm curious to know what Thinker is like by comparison.

Also I had a pointy argument with a newish fellow, about the design of AQUATIC factions and their minerals bonus.  I intend to prove that bonus sea minerals are quite good, as in overpowered!  So I will play the Pirates.  That will also keep the Pirates out of my own hair.  They can be so annoying.

My memory about Thinker strategy from quite some time ago, is to deny any of the AI factions the Weather Paradigm.  It will let 1 faction get too much of a jump start on their Condenser, Borehole, and Supply Crawler schtick.  Otherwise, the AI factions will get around to those things, but you can trash a lot of them before they really have a chance to do much of anything with them.  That's how I remember it from a long time ago, at any rate.

I also remember eco-damage and global warming stuff being a cakewalk, that it's not something to fear.  In other mods I'm usually very scared of polluting and I'll try to adjust.  The Pirates are good fit for me in that regard, because you don't put boreholes in the oceans anyways.

Details starting the show

starting the show

Huge map, because that's what mod for, and the only thing I play on nowadays.  It gives me a basis of comparison between mods.  Average settings, Transcend difficulty.  Random opponents.

Details no I don't think so

no I don't think so

At first I start with 30%..50% ocean, as that would be the appropriate setting in my mod or WTP to get big continents and big oceans.  Here I get something like the original game, with a lot of squiggly land masses, judging by the long distance radar.  This start is not acceptable.  I may be amphibious, but I'm not an amphibian!

Details almost an ocean

almost an ocean

I try again with 50%..70% ocean, and the results are more Pirate appropriate. 

[bvanevery]

Details I terraform best

I terraform best

MY 2148.  This is a pretty standard "completion scumming" driven opening for me.  It gets expensive Sea Colony Pods done pretty quickly, as well as other needful things like Transports to fish Artifacts out of the water.  Some of my exploration ships got killed but my 2 Scouts are still waltzing around.  I'm surprised that I haven't run into anybody on foot, but I'm also remembering that Thinker implemented an equidistant faction placement algorithm.  This is quite disadvantageous if your intent is to attack immediately, but just wonderful if you're going to sit back in your moat and build up a bit.

Details no one at the races

no one at the races

I've already completed the Weather Paradigm.  The problem with the original game and by extension, Thinker's unmodded rules, is Secret Projects are awfully cheap and awfully easy to get started.  In my mod, they start later and are much more expensive, so I'm quite experienced at using Artifacts to goose them along.  The Will To Power is even more brutal about the expense, and yet I can still trample the AI in SP production, because I know what to do.

So the milestone achieved is, no AI faction is going to get any kind of jump on me, producing their Condenser Borehole Supply Crawler spew.  I probably won't bother with any of it myself, first because it's not my style, second because I'm the Pirates.  So the question is, can any of the AIs get their Thinker terrain production thing on, before I kill them with amphibious assaults?  Expect the survivors to be far away.

In classic SMAC, Cruisers and Chaos Marines is winning the game.  Just sayin'.

That said, my current research focus is Build.  Force of habit.  Pirates in my mod are passive and pursue Wealth.  This makes them absolutely terrifying later in the game.  At some point I will start beelining for Doctrine: Initiative though.  It's been awhile since I played with original rules.  I'm not sure what other factions are going to trade me, when I meet them.  I just think, if there's no enemy anywhere near me, then let's build.

[bvanevery]

Details discontinuity

discontinuity

MY 2158.  Recently I allied with Roze, and suddenly this year, I know everybody.  I traded lots of techs with everybody.  Domai is the one pill and made war upon me.  Roze came through with maps for everybody.  Very consistent and orderly in that regard.  So I can see that Domai's colonization spread, has actually been terrible.  Only 6 cities.  Even I have 7, and I have to build expensive Sea Colony Pods.  Some of the other factions have just littered the ground with their colonies: the Morganites, the Peacekeepers, and the Hive.  The Cyborgs are surprisingly and strangely sad with only 4 cities.  Roze has a modest 11 cities.

So, Thinker's colonization results are rather mixed.  And everyone's reasonably far away from me, by ocean, which suits my purposes just fine for now.  I'll build what I want, then kill who I want.  Looks like it'll be the Drones.

[bvanevery]

Details colonization by overpopulation

colonization by overpopulation

MY 2191.  I have transitioned to building sea colony pods in size 5 cities only.  Pretty much all of my bases have been built with at least a Recreation Commons and a Children's Creche.  Many are working on Energy Banks.  I have plenty of Sea Formers and even some land Formers for the coastal resource specials.  I've got a Command Center at my biggest minerals deposit but I've not made any troops.  I'm not at war with anyone, although my Truce with Domai recently expired.

Details studying charts

studying charts

I have 3 allies.  None of them were selected for any particular reason, other than their willingness to ally with me.  The Morganites turn out to be the well heeled allies that selling or bestowing most of the techs on me.  This year they sold me the tech for Knowledge and I made that transition.  I can live with -2 PROBE as the only probe team I've seen in the sea is Morganic.  They're my ally and benefactor, so I'm certainly not worried about them stealing tech from me.  The Hive might eventually go to war with me, but by then hopefully I'll be wiping out their coast.

Details inefficiency consequences

inefficiency consequences

I definitely need more EFFIC as I've got 2 size 4 bases with unhappy people in them due to Bureaucracy.  Getting to EFFIC 0 is helpful to my overall cause, but not enough to solve this problem.

Details picking up some pods

picking up some pods

I have the money to pay for techs because I'm still exploring, using up old Scout units that lack Trance ability.  When that's over I may transition to Free Market, as it can suit my interest and will keep Morgan happy with me.

The exploit of using an ally to get all your tech is rampant in The Will To Power mod, and not entirely absent here.  There's really no point in researching a lot of tech if your empire is actually production limited.  I do have plenty of Sea Formers and my spreading is fine.   I shifted my capitol to Frigate Base and will gradually make a "perfect circle" around it.

Details secret equality

secret equality

I've not done better or worse than any other faction for SPs.  Nor have any proved to be powerhouses.  Once I built the Weather Paradigm I mostly concentrated on making sure I had enough Sea Formers for every city.  The Merchant Exchange was incidental, based on when I happened to be bringing back Artifacts and had some money.  I didn't have the tech for anything "better" either.  Frigate Base was my most promising city due to a resource "square" and an early kelp explosion.

[bvanevery]

Details war has come

war has come

MY 2202.  This isn't the war I imagined myself wanting, but it can work out ok.  Lal is incapable of doing me any harm at all.  There's a huge land mass in the way, as well as all of the Free Drones and the Hive.  Lal was already Seething at me, for reasons of his Lal-ness I can't even begin to fathom.  There's no basic sense in it, as I've made no Politics declaration whatsoever.

So this is just bowing to the inevitable and keeping Morgan happy.  It's good politics.  I wonder if either Yang or Domai will end up as an ally?  Yang should be happy that I'm trashing Lal.  I think Domai is unhappy that I'm not trashing Yang.

I do have my Marine Detachments now, although there's nobody to inflict them on, except my ally Morgan.  I'm really isolated by ocean.  At this rate I'm not sure the Maritime Control Center is all that important to me.  I'll get my free Naval Yards anyways, and I don't really see myself pushing a lot of ships around in the vast and mazelike ocean.  Straight up amphibious assaults on the nearby coasts are what's going to happen.  But whose coast?

[bvanevery]

Details I tried

I tried

MY 2220.  Having learned Advanced Military Algorithms, I thought I'd try to legalize chemical warfare!  I didn't think Lal would go for it.  He seldom does, but sometimes in the stock binary, I've been surprised.  I think there's no chance of deposing him as Governor as long as his empire is intact, as he built the Empath Guild.

I've been a chicken about making any other social engineering choices.  Practical exploration is almost over, so I may go Free Market soon.  Problem with that is, it will interfere with any war effort against Lal.  Not sure how I feel about that.  I'm still somewhat getting along with Yang.

Good grief, Morgan just gave me Orbital Spaceflight.  All kinds of options now.

[bvanevery]

Details free ride home

free ride home

MY 2224.  Roze suddenly wanted me to go to war with my long term ally and benefactor, the Morganites.  Of course I refused.  Then she begged me for a lot of money, and again I refused.  So she broke our Pact.  I contacted Morgan and all I could get him to do, was call off the war.  Then he cut me off before giving me any tech.  The thanks I get!

Roze ditching me, had the unexpected benefit of bringing a just captured Artifact immediately home.  It brought my Scout with it, so the far north is no longer being explored.  My Scout in the southern ocean has almost arrived home, so very soon I'll be free to do Free Market.  Politically, I think I really need Morgan on my side, regardless of the POLICE interference it's going to cause. 

Yang is supposedly Seething at me, but the last time I met him in person, he was Noncommittal.  That wasn't that long ago.  Everyone hates Lal.  Lal started the Maritime Control Center recently, so it might behoove me to try to steal from him.  It's a long way to get there though.  I'm more interested in learning Advanced Ecological Engineering so that I can mine Ocean squares, than I am in Doctrine: Initiative.  So I have kept my original Build only focus since the beginning of the game.

[bvanevery]

Details capitalist sea pig

capitalist sea pig

MY 2226.  All my Scouts are home, so I've finally gone Free Market.  This increases my income by roughly 50%.  I wasn't poor before, because I did get the Planetary Energy Grid done.  With -5 POLICE, I suppose I now have a bunch of useless Scout Police in my bases.  Well it's a 2nd line of defense in case raging Isles get through my untrained Trance Scouts.  Now, how do I actually make a war?  Maybe I don't.  First things first, I need to infiltrate.

[bvanevery]

Details new state of the sea

new state of the sea

MY 2228.  Morgan has declared war on the Hive.  I suspected that would eventually happen, as even in the unmodded game, the Hive tends to choose Planned to take advantage of its IMMUNITY to EFFIC penalties.  True to form, they're Police State Planned Wealth.  They were supposedly already Seething at me anyways, so it's only a matter of time before we're at war.

I choose Democratic, no longer worried about keeping the peace with them.  I'm making a probe team and probably when it arrives, Yang will declare war and then I'll steal.  In the meantime I will try to finish up all my infrastructure projects before going to Power.

I suppose with my Free Market limitation, I'm going to have to pursue what was known in Civ II as "Democratic Adjacency" warfare.  Nobody gets upset if you take a base in 1 turn.  Compare: Domino Theory.

[bvanevery]

Details Yang draws first blood

Yang draws first blood

MY 2232.  Morgan calls in his mark, and I dutifully go to war.  He gave me Fusion Power to assist in the effort!

The Free Drones immediately declare war on me.  I didn't even know they were allied with the Hive.  Wasn't that long ago they were fighting.  Yang clobbers my pathetic Trance Scout defense in my front line cities during the inter-turn, before I can do anything.  The AI made a mistake though: it should have sunk the Transport approaching with a probe team.  The Hive must not have a lot of troops to devote to this front.  At least, not yet.

Details SOB

SOB

Probe team defenders in both cities!  That's going to make my life hard.  So much for the "mistake".  I didn't infiltrate earlier in the game because I've been conditioned by The Will To Power's "impermanent probe teams".  Once you infiltrate, after awhile they discover your infiltration devices and you don't have infiltration anymore.  So there's just no point unless you really need to know what's going on.  Which would be like now.

Details moral victory

moral victory

At least I took out his foil probe team.  Not very likely that it survives any further though.  Wouldn't put money on the Transport either, although maybe Yang's planes will be busy.

Details potential catastrophic loss

potential catastrophic loss

Just realized I've got 4 Artifacts vulnerable to air assault.  Not good.  They were supposed to be a SP, because I keep forgetting that Thinker allows supply crawlers early and often.  I could try to turn them into techs, but that seems really pointless with Morgan as my benefactor, and enemies available to steal from.

Details air fodder

air fodder

I send my Sea Formers into harm's way, hoping they will distract any new planes from attacking Frigate Base.  Maybe I'll also get lucky and sneak my Transport and 2nd probe team through too.  I'm prototyping a Fusion AAA Gatling Silksteel Foil.  Wish I had my free Naval Yards but oh well.

[bvanevery]

Details increase the war machine

increase the war machine

MY 2234.  I succeed at one of my major objectives: activating my faction's ability to terraform Ocean squares.  This will make mining platforms majorly more useful.  I haven't bothered with Subsea Trunklines but now I'd say they're worth it.  This is a major point at which one would argue about what the Pirates are good for, and whether their +1 sea minerals is overpowered.  Hopefully I can capitalize on this and demonstrate some real power.

Details evil Yang

evil Yang

I'm at a favorable start this turn.  Yang didn't fly any air missions against me at all.  Nor did he bring any ships.  I think he's busy with other things.  Did he just completely backstab the Free Drones?  A whole lotta their cities just turned blue.  Their alliance must have broken down almost the minute Domai declared war on me.  Either that or the game is bugged.  I don't have the infiltration to know one way or the other.  Domai is at war with Morgan though, so I won't pester him about it.

Details SOB2

SOB2

This jerk actually reinforced the city where I killed the foil probe team.  Worse, it's a Veteran team and I bet I don't do so well against it.  I'm already committed though, I have to attack on account of the likelihood of planes sinking my Transport.  The team in the other city is Elite.  I guess I've lost the info wars here.  WTP is pretty slack about probe teams lately, doesn't even produce them.  That's a big difference from Thinker, which obviously knows what it's doing for probe team defense.

Hmm, my team is Commando, so I might do better than I thought.  Yeah, I actually killed his team and took 30% wounds.  I expect the Elite team in that other city will finish me off though.  The probe war may not be over yet though.

Details get me cruisers

get me cruisers

I look up the research weights for Doctrine: Initiative in alphax.txt, since I can't remember them in the original game off the top of my head.   They're power=2, growth=4, others=0.  I set my research to Explore, Conquer to get this as quickly as I can.  I don't think I have a rat's chance in hell of getting a probe team over to the Peackeepers any time soon.

[bvanevery]

Details first capture

first capture

MY 2237.  The Hive started making these annoying Chaos Foils with no armor.  The 1st one last year, I just blew up.  This one I've captured, so I should be able to reverse engineer cool stuff from it.  Hmm, except it's not listed as something I can build.  Darn.

Details clogging them up

clogging them up

MY 2238.  I've transitioned to units only production.  Every sea base has an Aquafarm.  My capitol even has a Hybrid Forest.  I let the Longevity Vaccine slip past me because it's late and I had to deal with my dog.  I get over-anxious when there's some big combat and a lot of moves to make.  Hard to stay focused.

Details make them tough

make them tough

Now it's finally time for Power.  I'm not sure how well these untrained AAA Silksteel ships are going to hold up against Chaos Needlejets, but they should be somewhat of a deterrent.  Definitely easier to stomp on the Free Drones, but I don't think the Hive will be at that much longer.  They're surprisingly ferocious.  When I do finally get infiltration, I wonder what I'll see?  The cities near me have only been defended with probe teams and scouts, although I did see a silksteel unit move in at one point.

Details party tiiiime

party tiiiime

Since I'm just waiting for units to get done, I don't need anywhere near as much money.  Let's crank up the happiness!  Maybe some of these cities full of food will grow faster.

It's 2:30 AM and I'm too tired to think straight about the game anymore.  Calling it a night.

[Induktio]

> The exploit of using an ally to get all your tech is rampant in The Will To Power mod, and not entirely absent here.

Tech trading is still basically vanilla only behaviour. What kind of exploit are you referring to? And which dialogue choices did you use to trade for those techs? It should be quite easy now to rewrite parts of that logic.

[bvanevery]

> The exploit of using an ally to get all your tech is rampant in The Will To Power mod, and not entirely absent here.

Tech trading is still basically vanilla only behaviour. What kind of exploit are you referring to?

Ok, I should be more thorough in describing The Will To Power's issue, and what Thinker is like by comparison.

WTP offers an early Fundamentalist choice that's massively beneficial, with a +INDUSTRY bonus, +2 MORALE, +2 PROBE, and a mere -2 RESEARCH to pay for all of that.  It's a slam dunk because if you make a "decent research" ally, they're gonna race way way ahead on tech.  They're gonna just give or sell you the tech, without restraint, and almost without regard for whether an uncompleted Secret Project is available.  They will give you so much tech so rapidly, that you'd be a complete chump to invest any of your empire resources into research at all.  You can totally outsource this, and they will rubberband you all the way to Transcendence if you really want it.

The problem is so bad that I've filed stop tech leakage as a "must fix" issue in WTP's Issue Tracker.  IMO, at any rate, as I don't have any authority over what gets worked on or not.  But I will not playtest WTP again, until at least 1 of the 3 issues is addressed.  I've "been there done that" enough times to know it's completely pointless to play the game anymore, absent 1 of the 3 major problems changing.  The other 2 major problems are AI spams way too many defenseless cities and AI should evaluate neighbor threat and build defensive units and structures accordingly.

When I playtest something, the testing resource I provide for giving feedback is considerable.  So the loss of me as a playtester does mean something.  I output about 100x more information than any other playtester does.  I love it when people volunteer their playtesting results, it's very valuable to get random perspectives out of the wild.  A random playtester gives insights that I simply can't get on my own.  But I am a heavy lifting, commercial grade, see myself as the Quality Assurance dept. level of playtester.  I've actually briefly done it for money, which was a horrible job and kind of a joke, 'nuther story.

Anyways... Thinker by comparison, is good at stuffing the player about unfinished Secret Projects.  It retains the stock game behavior in that regard, as does my mod.  So it doesn't have that problem.

But Morgan is still very far ahead on research, and fairly willing to bestow a lot of that to me.  He'll get cagey if he's working on some SP, but if some other tech comes along, he may sell or give it.  Thinker is no different than vanilla in that regard.  You can pester an advanced benefactor and for the most part, they will rubberband you.  The game doesn't really make a consideration of whether you can or should be carrying your own weight.  So the exploit is available.  It's just not as egregiously bad as in WTP.

The problem that Thinker has created for itself, is these super-empires that are going gangbusters on research energy input, apparently.  The original game didn't have quite that level of aggressive physical empire growth, so not quite as much raw input into tech advancement.  And it has the rubberbanding behavior built in.  So now in Thinker, I can benefit lots from the rubberbanding behavior.  Any of these large empires can become a super sugar daddy if you stay on good terms with them.  It's so compelling that I'd really be a chump to do something other than what Morgan wants, for quite some time at least.  Talk to me again when I've cut a hole through the Hive's heart, on the way to the Peacekeeper's repository of SPs.

You would do well in your modding work, if you located the vanilla rubberbanding code, and somehow seriously toned down the scope of what a benefactor will give.  What's the point of your AI making rich empires, if that just becomes the human player's rich research station by proxy?

Also, you really don't have to sell techs for 100 credits.  It's such a joke.

And which dialogue choices did you use to trade for those techs? It should be quite easy now to rewrite parts of that logic.

"I desire access to your research data."  "Some of my valuable research data?"  That's my standard cue for gimme something free, or sell me cheap.  And the big sugar daddy will usually do it.  They just don't value their techs, and they quite inappropriately look at my empire and think I'm some complete peon.  They really don't evaluate empire strength very well.  I hardly think that's Thinker's fault, the vanilla game just isn't smart that way.  Just because I only have 15 cities doesn't mean I can't kick ass.

When a sugar daddy doesn't want to bestow tech, they will politely refuse to communicate with you.  You just keep polling this every few turns until they do.  Then, they usually if not always yield the goods.  Very much an exploit.  One way to control it, is to make the no communication interval longer.  But this interferes with other things you need to do with an ally, so not the best solution.

If the sugar daddy is working on a SP, the "Some of my valuable research data?" dialogue choice won't work.  They'll tell you to check back later when they're done with their project.  You can try again with "Would a modest sum of energy credits be helpful?" and sometimes they'll sell you an unrelated tech.  Other times they won't.  But it works often enough to be worth trying.  Clearly, the code paths have slightly different logic and are differently exploitable.

[Induktio]

Uh-huh. It seems AI is putting up some resistence there. Won't be just a walk in the park.

Certainly this normal AI tech trading behaviour can be exploited quite easily. Also it should be a lot more difficult to just become a tech broker by trading same techs to multiple AIs. The good news is that I've already reversed a lot of stuff related to diplomacy dialogue, so there shouldn't be any real technical obstacles for patching tech_trade function. Mostly a question of how much time to spend to figure out a new valuation function for tech trades, and writing more strict conditions before the trades are proposed. Also the AI could generally demand higher level techs in exchange for their own, e.g. give them some B5 tech and they could trade B4 tech back.