Air Defense puzzle

[Hot Rats]

I just tried to drop a marine by a Gaian base and received a message similar to "Air Defenses prevent you from drops into "base-name". This applied wherever I tried within Gaian territory. I had a vendetta with Deirdre.

The thing is, Deirdre has no airbases, in fact she has not researched Doctrine Air Power. She has no Secret Projects. What gives her this ability? Grateful for any ideas.

[gwillybj]

Every faction has rudimentary air defenses, so you can't air-drop directly into an enemy base. You have to drop adjacent to it, then attack it on the ground. 50% penalty applies if you attack on the same turn that you drop.

[Kataphraktoi]

Actually you can air drop directly into enemy bases, remember the infamous chop and drop strategy?
What you cant do is drop on top of a unit, but he specifically mentions the air defense message, not the message for dropping on top of a unit.

Could the gaians have a unity scout chopper or somesuch on air defense duty nearby? SAM\interceptor units can prevent air drops

[gwillybj]

Kataphraktoi: I did indeed forget chop-n-drop.

Hot Rats: Can you attach a savegame so we can get eyes on the battlefield?

[Petek]

Kata reported a similar situation here, eight years ago. In that thread, smacksim said that he had run into the same problem. So, this might be a rare, unpatched bug.

@Hot Rats -- As gwillybj requested, please post a save game that illustrates the problem. Are you playing SMAC or SMAX? Press Ctrl-F4 when playing a game. What version is shown?

[Kataphraktoi]

Interesting;i completely forgot about that post and also the PBEM game i mentioned

[Hot Rats]

Thanks for your replies. Sorry for my delay in replying.

Kata - no, no air units or SAM units

Petek - SMAX release 1.0 12 Sep 1999

Save is attached. Look for Drop Marine at (64,64) and Gaian base at (58,56).

Before anyone comments, yeah this game was won long ago, but I'm exploring what is a new game for me.

[Petek]

Hey Hot Rats,

Thanks for posting the save file. Can't reproduce your problem. I can drop the Drop Marine into a tile adjacent to Falling Water and then capture it the same turn. Your issue is undoubtedly caused by not having the most recent patch(es). You should be on SMAX version 2.0. I'm going to assume that you haven't applied any patches for either SMAC or SMAX. Please post again (before updating) if that's not the case. Here's how to update your game:

1. Install the SMAX patch 2.0 update.
2. Install the SMACx Win 2000/XP Update.

Note that you should install the second update even if you don't play SMAC or if your OS is more recent than the ones mentioned in the title of the update.

Optional, but highly recommended, install scient's unofficial patch. Other unofficial patches are available at alphacentauri2. You can look there and decide whether you want to install any.

Installing the official and unofficial patches will fix many bugs other than the one you ran into. Hope you find this information useful.

[Kataphraktoi]

I loaded the savegame in a stock install GOG SMACX and did get the message about air defenses preventing drops. Playing in a scient patched version did allow an air drop

http://postimg.org/image/oqrc9hlfz/

[Petek]

Interesting. When I run GOG's terranx.exe (dated 1/2/2013, size 3012 KB), I am able to make the air drop. In any event, the OP needs to patch his game.

[Kataphraktoi]

My terranx is also 3,012 kb with two dates;
created Saturday, 26. October 2013, 12:00:44
modified Tuesday, 11. September 2012, 11:10:20

Maybe it is slightly out of date

Anyway the scient patch is an easy recommendation for anyone playing, ive seen no negative gameplay alterations or new bugs show up and it fixes some annoying things.

[Hot Rats]

Many thanks, all of you. For my next game I want to play a weak faction, maybe Pirates, and a tougher unofficial patch, because this game is too easy. Petek, I gather Scient's patch is more of a bug fix; what do you think of Kyrub's patch?

[Petek]

Kyrub's patch primarily improves AI terraforming, although it also fixes some bugs that didn't make it into scient's patch. It also improves some other AI actions. Since kyrub prefers SMAC over SMAX, he didn't fully implement all his changes in the SMAX version of the patch. I experimented with the SMAC patch when it first came out and found that AI terraforming was indeed improved.

If you can beat the game easily at transcend difficulty, you'll have to find other ways to play. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Play the switching sides challenge. Start a game with whatever faction you like. When you achieve number one status in the power rankings, use the scenario editor to take control of the weakest faction in the game. You'll now be playing a faction that probably has poor terraforming and too many useless units. You'll also be facing your prior faction, which should now be a powerhouse. Just winning the game under these conditions should be a challenge. However, you can make it even more challenging by switching sides yet again after you've brought your new faction to number one. I don't think that anyone has ever won the full challenge, which consists of repeatedly switching factions until you've played all seven and won.

2. The one city challenge. You're only allowed to build one city and you must win by transcendence. This challenge is totally doable, but results in completely different gameplay.

3. In the custom rules, turn on Time Warp: Accelerated Start. The game begins several years after planetfall. Each faction receives one of the seven early secret projects, so you can't milk the game to get your favorite SPs. You'll have numerous random techs. Your faction will have typical AI terraforming.

4. Play with blind research. No more beeliining for Industrial Automation, or whatever are your favorite techs.

Those are just a few suggestions. I'm that you can think of other methods too.

[Kataphraktoi]

You could also check out the Scenario Repository on civfanatics. Many of these scenarios have boosted AI that can put up more of a fight than usual.

[Hot Rats]

Kata - great link. Thanks.

Petek - I like your first two suggestions. However, thinking about this, terraforming is so crucial that if the AI can't do it properly, then the AI should be taken out if it can't be improved significantly. So the question is, does Kyrub (or anyone else) bring AI terraforming up to the standard of a decent player? If not, the scenarios are the only way to go.