SMAC Fac Pack

[nweismuller]

Maybe it's intended and you're riffing off "anarchist" anarchist groups, but I think it's quite strange that their leader uses an aristocratic title.

It's deliberate ironic humor on the Dame's part.

Edit: If asked directly about it, she'll freely admit nobody knighted her and the entire tradition of knighthood is ridiculous, but she's a Dame because she calls herself one.  And it gives an excuse to occasionally pull out pompous mock-formality that skewers the pretensions of other leaders that take themselves more seriously.

[nweismuller]

Anyhow, one thing I'd appreciate is if somebody could play with the mod to see if the balance isn't excessively terrible.  If there are factions that end up egregiously weak or strong, I'd like to know, so that it can be addressed.  I'm also not sure the ECONOMY penalty for the Catholics was actually a good call, but not fully sure what to replace it with...

[Friendly Sven]

Barring a few creative/technical bottlenecks, the graphics are more or less done.
Attached to this post (and a second post b/c attachment limits) I have screen caps of each factions .svg file. Some elements of each have been annotated to mark possible alternatives for leader profiles, faction logos, etc...
Also: I haven't mentioned them before, but I've decided to ignore the faction2 and faction3 files for the time being. --they're only relevant to the monument and for faction deaths

Note that any annotations are in order of my personal preference/judgement.

Anarchists:
I actually found that old mining platform graphic; it's uglier than i thought, but it might still make for a decent sea base. To be honest, I'm not certain what color scheme to use for anarchists.
I've had a hard time finding any good pictures to convert for our beloved dame.
I had a good time finding diplomacy backgrounds. B has some meta-humor to it but A gives a better impression of what their bases might actually be like.
I've used the supplied logo (A), and i think it works. I also made a sort of negative version has no black field (B).

Cartel:
This is the most complete faction.
Their bases (recolored from morgan) are a little noisy and have some color issues (base defenses) but are distinct and unique enough, I think.
I've reworked the supplied logo and I am very happy with it. I've even applied scan-lines and recolored the report logos, though my method there needs some work.
The Leader is a place-holder from Buster's uncle. --same issue as the Anarchists
I was having a rough time finding good diplo backgrounds, until I remembered the cartel's base names. A and C are  basically screenshots from deus-ex revision, and I think they work very well (especially A). I also kept my original attempts (stock markets) for everyone to see (B would be my choice).

Catholics:
This faction is also very nearly complete.
I found a suitable replacement for my favorite bishop, and kept the snazzy background. it's a little rough but it works. (I need to redo it anyways to re-scale it)
Inspired by the peacekeeper placeholder graphics, I recolored their bases to fit the sort of cardinal red of the faction and dirtied-up the base a bit.
I've made an attempt at the logo; I call it "the cross of Centauri" and I think it fits.
I REALLY like the photo-realism of diplo background A but it does seem a bit decadent for space-Catholics, so I found a few alternatives.

Loyalists:
The logo needs some love, and the bases are a little drab, but this faction is also very nearly done.
My goal for the bases is to make them white-washed spartan bases with blue banners but I need to get better at recoloring to achieve that.
Diplo background A and B are tossup. A shows a hard-line militarism while B shows a sort of civility, both look good, it's a matter of taste. (B would need to have the UN logo updated, if selected)

The next three factions are the problem children...

[Friendly Sven]

The other three:

I forgot to mention: colors are still temporary/ made unique to play well with smacx.

Preservers:
The bases I showed previously are a little on the big side, so I'd like to have a go at making more conservative ones. Then I'd just need to add defenses.
No good leads for the leader pic, The placeholder is okay but I doesn't really match the photo-realistic style of the rest.
Diplo background A works well in my opinion.
You can see many logo attempts. I like the "globe in a book" idea but the resolution may not be good enough to communicate the earth. (I used a polar projection)

Tribals:
Need a solid leader pic and logo.
I think their logo should be relatively simple, as if it were some sort of cave art. But I'm not certain what to draw.
It's hard to find a pic of someone wearing a mask in an appropriately primitive setting, but I've made a solid attempt.
I imagined that the Tribals would use caves over large buildings, so I found dilpo backgrounds to solidify that.
I'm not convinced these bases match the art style, but they're good enough for now.

Unicorp:
The bases work, everything else has options.
Finding a good leader pic was hard, but I found a few to work with. I also kept Buster's Uncles alternate drone leader as a fallback.
Diplo background A, B and C all have strengths to me. A is simple and demonstrates heavy industry, B looks a little more high-tech, and C gives a peek at their slave workers.
I also attempted to modify the free-drone logo. It kinda works but it feels too bootleg for my tastes.

[nweismuller]

Well, right off, let me say I'm liking the progress on the art.  The Cartel leader might be a placeholder, but he's at the least not terrible.  As far as diplo backgrounds go, I like A for Anarchists, Cartel, and Catholics (even if you think it's a little too ornate), and B for the Loyalists.  Cave backgrounds for Tribal shelters seems sensible- converting caves into pressure-sealed habs seems like it could be a possible route for them to take as they start to outgrow simple pressure tent villages.  I sort of like background B for Unicorp, but, again, they all look good.  The Free Drone logo modified... yeah, I'm with you on it not quite working.  I'll try to meditate on it.

I knew making landmasses recognisable for a globe would be tough, so I was thinking something closer to this: https://sciencepickle.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Latitude-copy.png
A circle with some latitude and longitude lines is a recognisable symbol of 'the globe', and could reference the Terra in the Preservers of Terra.  And it might be easier to present artistically in the SMAC art style.

Shame this is female, it would be *very* good for Tribals otherwise- https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/63fb32dc-ed01-4e3f-9a34-29974f71754f_1.b3d1aaefd5200a7cd622605b23f7961c.jpeg?odnWidth=612&odnHeight=612&odnBg=ffffff  Searching for 'post-apocalyptic pressure mask' has some promising images, maybe you can try that.

[Friendly Sven]

>A circle with some latitude and longitude lines is a recognisable symbol of 'the globe'

>Searching for 'post-apocalyptic pressure mask' has some promising images, maybe you can try that.

Well, that made the logo a bit easier to produce. Adding a book below the logo didn't feel right so I instead tried making figures holding up the globe, "bearing the weight of Terra".

To my frustration, I can only find pictures of women wearing those mouth-only masks. However I did find something that could be serviceable. See for yourself. You can also see my prototypes for tribal logos: the "mouth" of a mind worm (adapted from Morgan logo, brood pit, and planet cult) and imagery based on monoliths, precursors, resonance, and psionics.

This reminds me of a question about the tribals, are they more human or more "native"? Would you more closely compare them to the planet cult, or the gaians? Their dialogue ("let us smoke the pipe of peace" etc...) and connection to planet feels inconsistent alongside tech blurbs describing their pure pragmatism.

It's good to hear you like the work so far. I can't wait to get the graphics all done so I can actually get playing (every time I try to play I inevitably start working on the art instead).

Balance notes from a few graphics tests/poking around (I enabled accelerated starts to have more to look at):
- The Cartel is CRIPPLED by low support, especially when the ai is controlling(they like building a lot of units). -3 support is workable but "informal" politics knocks you into -4 support. -2 minerals per unit from the get-go is a huge price for +1 econ and +1 efficiency. The cartel should be immune to that support hit as well.
- I like that the starting civics have effects, but their being purely negative feels off. The early game is slow enough in vanilla. Perhaps these civics could be useful in the early game but poorly scalable for the late game.

[nweismuller]

The Tribals are... essentially humans who have undergone societal regression under the stresses of near-extinction after Planetfall and being conditioned by the Planetmind.  They venerate the 'spirits of the world' in a way that's probably closer to Gaian religious practise than Cult practise, but their simple, crude society probably looks more like the Cult.  They resort to technological pragmatism, but it's mixed with shamanistic religion and superstition, because their lifestyle has heavily exposed them to the Planetmind's psionic influence.  Ideologically, they're humbler than the Cult, and are presumed to syncretise Catholic religious practise with their shamanistic practises under the influence of the Holy See in the timeline suggested by the blurbs (although this obviously doesn't necessarily happen).  Fear and awe of the mindworms as, essentially, the agents of anger of the spirits of the world, but unlike the Cult they wouldn't venerate mindworms.  Much of their society can be understood as the tradeoffs between the needs of survival and the visions their shamans get under telepathic influence from the Planetmind, which they are very reluctant to anger because they know it can kill them.  The societal regression not entirely 'natural'- the mental influence of the Planetmind has nudged them into a format which can be adapted into the local ecology.  The first Tribals were children of a modern society, and never planned to regress to neo-primitives, but the Planetmind can work more easily with humans in something closer to their ancestral social structure, and it 'encouraged' decisions that pushed to a regression to tribalism.

That picture for a Tribal leader looks great, I can see that being High Chief Joseph.

Part of the idea with penalties for starting social engineering is to make it less tempting to stick with the defaults in the long term, but you're right, -4 SUPPORT is brutal.  Maybe it would be best to remove penalties to default social engineering choices for now, although slowing down the early game even further honestly doesn't bother me.  Keep the feedback up, and I'll try to work to update the files.

[Friendly Sven]

That makes sense; not as traditionally human as the Gaians but not as insane as the Cult. What do you imagine the high-tech tribals to be like then? How does one produce nanobots in such a society?

From my experience (single-player only), there are situations where you might stick to the default choices while you wait for a particular policy to be unlocked, but I don't see the logic for keeping default SE choices in the long term. Even then, the price you pay is the opportunity cost of NOT specializing your faction. That said, I do like the idea of the default choices having effects, it just makes things more complicated from a balance perspective (especially since you're stuck with them for quite a while!).

Art stuff: (Each bullet here is an attachment)

- Found a better pic for the cartel leader, but I'm not convinced that it fits. I also improved the recoloring for their bases and I'm pleased with the results.
- Produced a logo for the tribals. I'm not certain if the mind worm is appropriate, but I quite like it.
- Found a leader pic for the preservers, the scene and demeanor feel appropriate.
- Created a leader pic for the dame. Her attractive appearance makes for a good contrast with du lac.

Until now, I somehow failed to notice that the purple colors used in the anarchist logo are the very same colors used to mark transparency for .pcx files. Thanks to palette limitations we have the following options: lilac shades (similar to those used by the data angels) or a single shade of hot pink. I could use these colors to highlight the edges of the black parts of the logo, making this palette compromise less obvious. (See attachment of the dame for color samples)

Anyways, besides the above issue and some nitpicks, here's what's left to be done:
- Anarchist Bases (Still stuck debating what works best color/theme-wise)
- Preserver Bases (Just need to do defenses & sea bases)
- Unicorp logo & faction profile

Unicorp. The worst of Morgan and the Hive mixed together, right? My understanding of this faction feels the weakest, and I suspect that is holding me back. Do they try to look humanitarian to other factions? Or do they embrace their practices like the hive? How close are they to some sort of Stalinist state-capitalism sort of arrangement?

[nweismuller]

First off, in the palette.pcx file in the version of the files I uploaded you should see the colors I chose from the palette for Anarchist colors.  I'm away from my computer right now and can't check it, but it might guide you on that.

The leader images all look reasonable to me, honestly.

Unicorp- the central premise that animates Unicorp is that Chiron is a hostile environment that naturally rejects human life, and, in the face of that, what is required is disciplined cooperation to shape the environment and build what is needed.  Any version of Unicorp, regardless of social engineering, has as a key assumption that there is legally one and only one employer within Unicorp territory- and work is mandatory.  Unicorp will dispose of labor as it views necessary to achieve its objectives to build a colony wherein humanity can survive.  Officially, Unicorp might deplore 'abuses' of its labor force, but as an matter of external public relations, it will hold that maintaining absolute authority over its population to assure that a cohesive and disciplined response to the challenges of the world is necessary, even if unchallenged authority and no competition provides fertile ground for abuses.  Their argument to outsiders is that they are doing what is necessary, even if harsh, to build a better world, and that criticism based on 'human rights' or 'individual freedoms' betrays unserious sentimentalism that sacrifices actual human survival based on raw emotion.

(The Cartel, meanwhile, notes archly that Unicorp is sacrificing literal human lives and long-term economic growth through innovation in the name of doing that which is currently technologically possible on a massive scale, believing that there's a very specific emotional error of fear fueling Unicorp's policy there.)

The Unicorp mindset is very much that of knowingly and willingly setting up society as a set of sacrifices to the greater good, in the hope of eventually completely mastering the external environment.  In some ways, they can be compared to the Loyalists, but unlike the Loyalists the Unicorp focus on the great threat to be overcome is the external environment and the economic challenges of human survival, as opposed to the Loyalist focus on internal and external military/political enemies to state survival.

Very high-technology Tribals are, admittedly, a little hard to picture, particularly if they lead the tech curve.  Reliance on bartering and salvaging technology from more technologically-advanced factions with better manufacturing capabilities seems a likely source for difficult technologies for Tribals in a more 'normal' game.  Presumably Tribals with actual hab complexes and growing settlements get settlements that are at least closer to more conventional factions that can serve as something of an industrial center.

Edit: does that help you get a handle on the Unicorp mindset and society, more?

[Friendly Sven]

Yes, now I have a less stereotyped understanding (Though I was pretty close with the whole Stalinist thing). Suddenly, "Before the hostility of this world, there is no margin for error and no room for those who do not pull their own weight. " rings much truer.

Whenever I've been at a loss logo-wise, I've fallen back on the iconography from facilities, techs, and secret projects. I'm thinking doing something similar for unicorp to illustrate this idea of overcoming the external environment. Imagine the human silhouette from hab complexes on top of say, industrial automation.

It could go either way, but I imagined the Tribals taking some influences from the Progenitor's remnants. Their high planet rating helps you find a lot of alien artifacts (This is why their art has artifacts and monoliths in their larger cities).

And yeah I'll take a peek at that palette file again.

[MysticWind]

I was burnt out on SMAC for a few months, but I'm feeling about it now. I'm still working on my own crossover fanfic that includes the SMAC Fac Pack factions, but I'm wondering if there's anything I can help with this actual mod, at least when it comes to consolidating the text files? Or are they all good now?

[nweismuller]

The biggest issue with the text files currently is that I really need to go through TECHLONGS and make the category and tier reported for all prereqs is accurate for changes to tech weights and the structure of the tech tree.  If you want to review alpha.txt and TECHLONGS.txt and make sure everything is set properly, that'd be great, but I wouldn't blame you for leaving it to me.  I have an updated version of the files, putting a bandaid on the balance issues by stripping out the effects of default social engineering choices.  I'm not 100% happy with this solution, but it beats the pants off the current balance problems with the Cartel.  Other than that, we just need updated images.  One thing that might be useful for images, incidentally, is if whoever reviews alpha.txt and TECHLONGS.txt noted which techs changed category between Explore/Discover/Build/Conquer, so our fearless image editor could change the colors on the appropriate icons.  And, if they were inspired with good icon designs for tech024.pcx (for Plasma Dynamics) and tech070.pcx (for Life Extension), that'd be great.  (Totally understandable if Friendly Sven wants to punt on that, though.)  I'm actually quite happy with the help, and am looking forward to when Friendly Sven puts the faction image files out for our use!

Edit: Aside from the purely mechanical work of going through TECHLONGS, there are some matters requiring judgement I could use a hand thinking about.  To wit:

1) I find myself not really happy about the Catholic ECONOMY penalty, and uncertain the SUPPORT bonus really fits right.  I'm half-inclined at this point to strip out the SUPPORT bonus and ECONOMY penalty, replace it with some other base SMAC-compliant penalty (but what?), and add free rec commons as a perk to reflect the inherent factional traditions of church-supported charity and the role of churches serving as the center of social life, thus making life easier for their least fortunate.  Thoughts?
2) On reflection, I think it's possible it might be more thematic to swap the MORALE and PROBE bonuses between Anarchists and Loyalists, making Anarchists expert in asymmetrical warfare and espionage and more dedicated to their cause against foreign ideas, and making Loyalists the experts in conventional warfare.  Again, thoughts?
3) I'm not sure the factional tech priorities are quite correct as it stands.  Preservers, Cartel, and Anarchists as Explore/Discover, Build/Discover, and Discover/Conquer make perfect sense to me.  The other four, I'm actually having second thoughts about, and could use somebody to review my thoughts here.  Loyalists as Build/Conquer, on reflection, feels too much like they inherited it from Yang while not noting Yang's industrial focus with his slave labor in the base game.  Not sure if the Build fits, not sure if any other secondary priority fits, the Conquer definitely fits.  Unicorp as pure Build feels like it misses the intended focus Unicorp has on big planetary engineering projects, I can easily see them as Explore/Build to nudge them towards things like Ecological Engineering.  Catholics as Explore/Conquer again feels like it's too much straight inherited from the Believers; I'm very tempted to make them straight Explore.  On the other hand, the Tribals as pure Explore seems not quite to catch what I feel would be an emphasis in their tribal society on weapons and methods of war as highly-valued; I think they may work better as Explore/Conquer.  Sanity check here?
4) In general, I'm interested in people doing gameplay review of the factions and making sure they're at least vaguely balanced.  Perfect balance is of course unachievable, but if any are blatantly too strong or too weak I want to know.

[nweismuller]

OK, after reviewing what OTHER factions get, and not being all that happy with the ECONOMY penalty for the Catholics... does anybody see any way there could be a reasonable argument for them instead having an EFFIC penalty?  Considering stripping the SUPPORT bonus, the ECONOMY penalty, adding an EFFIC penalty, which would be unique for current factions, and giving them free rec commons.  Still waiting for any thoughts on any of the other things I raised.

[MysticWind]

I've transcribed the SMAC Fac Pack factions onto the wiki here:

https://alphacentauri2.info/wiki/Category:SMAC_Fac_Pack%27s_factions

I had to change the Society of Free Thought's .txt file to ANARCHISTS.txt, because ANARCHY.txt already belongs to a different custom faction on the wiki, and so the faction image file ANARCHY.png auto-populates into the Society's entry. I think that's hardcoded behavior and couldn't override it.

[nweismuller]

A new interation of the SMACFacPack, with a few text fixes in the Catholics, a redesign of Catholic bonuses, and changes to tech agendas for Unicorp, Loyalists, and Catholics is attached.  As ever, feedback is appreciated.

Also curious, Friendly Sven, if you're still messing around with creating art for it.