SMAniaC

[Mart]

Scenario to try. If you place it in your Scenarios folder and play it as "play scenario" you should automatically use the new alphax.txt. No other change to the game is needed.

Ai will probably perform very stupid here, just see the techs. Although expect some factions get to powerful technologies quite early.

I can also do a challenge game with this scenario mod.

[Lazerus]

damn just how cheap do the crawlers want to be

[Maniac]

Hurray! The alpha version of my mod is ready!

Anyone interested in playtesting it with me?

I've included all my files of the mod in the attached zip file. At the moment, I haven't made any graphic changes yet, so the only thing that needs to be done is throw the alphax.txt and faction files in the main SMAC directory.

(Well one graphic file is included: the spartans.pcx is just a minor modification turning the Spartan faction colour from black to dark grey. Useful for PBEMs in which Sparta has black text colour instead of white.)

Myself I've started using a seperate SMAC directory for this mod, so I don't have to switch files with the standard version.

[#endgame]

*cough* ModMan *cough*

[Mart]

What kind of playtesting you have in mind? A multiplayer?

[Maniac]

Nah, just single player for now to give comments. Do you think it's balanced? What tech strategy do you follow? Which SE choices do you make? etcetera..

[Maniac]

Just in case anyone's interested, an updated alphax.txt correcting some mistakes I encountered.

[PJayTycy]

what did you change?

[Maniac]

IIRC:

• Interplanetary Spaceflight had The Exowomb incorrectly as a prerequisite. Changed to Ecological Geneering.
• Corrected the prerequisite of the missle chassis to what it was meant to be.
• Scrapped the Nuclear and Doomsday Missile basic units. Having those in the #UNITS caused their weapons to be already prototyped, which I didn't want.

However yesterday I've already changed the alphax.txt again. I've added two technologies: 'Long Range Missiles' & 'N-Space Resonance'. I've reshuffled conventional missiles to 'Long Range Missiles' and the Flechette Defense System (and the ability to raise/lower terrain) to 'N-Space Resonance'. Also seriously reduced the cost and weapon strength of the conventional missiles to 4. It's an experiment to see if the AI will build those cheap missiles and use them effectively. Missiles probably have a higher chance of hurting a human player than masses of land troops charging to their death. (Unless of course you defend against missiles with flechette defense and AAA, which is available earlier in the tech tree compared to the standard game.)


Are you trying out the mod, PJayTycy?

[GeoModder]

Update?

And you have a lot of editing to do in the tech files and such.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by GeoModder
Update?

Update!

Besides the ones mentioned above:

• Interplanetary Spaceflight still had a wrong prerequisite.
• Orbital Spaceflight now has N-Space Resonance instead of Fusion Power as a prerequisite. Yet another choice to make! Should I go for Space Power or Fusion Power first?
• The Psi Twister is now available a bit earlier.
• The Psi Amplifier armour has now been scrapped to make room for Force Field (D4) armour available with N-Space Resonance.
• Nuclear missile is now available again as a basic units. The Cult used 20 of them on nearby Sparta and Hive in one test game. Perhaps their cost should be increased somewhat. The Doomsday Missile is still scrapped though, as I discovered they didn't have their planet buster capability as a basic unit type.
• The 'Explore' value of several green techs has been increased, to make them more attractive for the AIs to research.

[Maniac]

I also made changes to the Gaian and Cult faction files.

Some test games to see how the AIs perform learned me that no one except the Peacekeepers (whose focus I changed to Explore & Build) researched the 'green' side of the tech tree. Even not the Gaians and Cult.

To solve that, I changed the Gaian focus to Explore & Build as well. Now they do go after Environmental Economics, acquiring their free tree farm.

The problem with the Cult was that they primarily focused on the Conquer techs and conventional weapons. Therefore I changed their focus to 'Explore' only. Now they do research the techs that give further production boni to fungus!

I then tested a game with three AI Gaians and thee AI Cults to see how they would perform. The answer is "really well!"

Two Gaian factions started near the monsoon jungle along with me giving them some resonance grids (orbital power transmitters renamed - a common CMN method to improve AI performance), which of course partly explains their success. But still, a nice result I think. Here's a screenie from 2300:

[Maniac]

Err, pressed 'Submit reply' by accident. Here's the screenie:

[Maniac]

I was more surprised by the improved Cult performance though. At one point faction Planet Cult-2 was the most powerful faction. Which is even more surprising as I discovered only in MY 2250 I hadn't given them resonance grids like the Gaian factions. So they basically got to their current size without any help or boosts whatsoever! Here's a screenie from 2300:

[Maniac]

Here's the test game MY 2317. The Gaians are building the Voice of Planet.

[GeoModder]

Updated mod files, I meant!

[Maniac]

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...35#post3903435

[GeoModder]

Is the attachment updated then?

[Maniac]

The SMAniaC attachment eight posts up contains an updated alphax.txt, modtechtree.jpg, modtech.doc, gaians.txt & fungboy.txt
I included all the other faction text files as well, so everything necessary to play the mod is in there.

[GeoModder]

Oh ok, thanks.

[Maniac]

I noticed that when all your citizens are already drones prior to any modifiers, the negative SE Talent factor has no effect anymore. This means that after you cross the second bureaucracy limit (usually 12 bases with standard efficiency), what I thought would be the biggest penalty for private economies is annulled. For that reason I'm thinking about reducing the Talent penalty of private economies to -1 (that way it still has an effect on democratic societies), but adding a -1 support penalty.

Personally in standard SMAC I'm more a planned economics person than a free market economics though. Meaning I'm not the best person to judge whether the current private economics SE effects are balanced. So in case there are any freemarketeers here testing out the mod: what's your attitude about playing under private economics with the current and perhaps soon changed SE effects? Still as good a strategy? Do you adapt your playstyle?

[binTravkin]

I noticed that when all your citizens are already drones prior to any modifiers, the negative SE Talent factor has no effect anymore.

Almost all Talent effects ingame as well as the NODRONE effect are cancelled after you get b-drones (only depends how many - NODRONE is cancelled with first limit and talents with second).

HGP, PK bonus, Clinical Immortality inclusive.

(don't remember about Garden Of Paradise).

[dmm1285]

Originally posted by Maniac
I was more surprised by the improved Cult performance though. At one point faction Planet Cult-2 was the most powerful faction. Which is even more surprising as I discovered only in MY 2250 I hadn't given them resonance grids like the Gaian factions. So they basically got to their current size without any help or boosts whatsoever! Here's a screenie from 2300:

I'm not surprised at all at how well the cult is doing, since you gave them funugs bonuses right? I made a worm faction that had 1/1/1 for fungus, and I when I ran simulations, it would end up kicking the other faction's asses by 2250 because it actually understands how to terraform kind of efficently instead of making 1 farm and 2 solar collecters in its area. A great way to make the game harder is to give the factions bonusses to fungus production

[Maniac]

Originally posted by mart7x5
I experimented with extremely cheap suply. Does not work for AI. I try the expensive option. AI likes making crawlers for SP hurrying.

Doesn't work with me.

[binTravkin]

AI likes making crawlers for SP hurrying.

It works with one rule - AIs must have as little left in their imaginary "queue" as possible (under the current tech).

They will mostly favour CPs, SPs and rectanks over crawlers and facilities like Rec comms and some other also seem to be more highly rated by them.

[binTravkin]

Ahh, and, of course, the military..

[Maniac]

Originally posted by binTravkin
Ahh, and, of course, the military..

Ah, there's the big catch.

[binTravkin]

Try CTs Solstice challenge Maniac and you'll see AIs cashing things pretty nicely.

[Impaler[WrG]]

Its nice to see more Moding going on, I will give this one a look and tell you what I think. My own mod has been on hold for the longest time though it is playable it lacks much of its polish and could be improved quite a bit. May I have permishion to incorporate elements of your mod into my own, credit will be given ofcorse?

On a general note the main AI problem I am seeing in my Mod is that the AI builds lots of colony Pods and then runs them around in circles (its not suprising to see 4 or 5 pods at a time) untill they are destroyed by Mind worms or enemy units. This seems to get REALY bad when the AI dosn't have any land left to expand into. Anyone have a idea how this can be handled?

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]
May I have permishion to incorporate elements of your mod into my own, credit will be given ofcorse?

Sure.



Personally I'm not testing the mod anymore. I'll probably get back to it when I'm bored with other stuff I'm doing.