I thought that this scenario could use some explanation...


You already know the basic premise, so I won't repeat myself here.  Since you mentioned that you play SFB in your guide, I guess you know where I got the names of the two power blocs from.

The Alliance forces (University, Gaians, Morgans, and Peacekeepers) each start out with both a level 3 and a level 1 base.  Each base has one independant former, and if the base is coastal, it receives a sea former as well.  Each faction also starts with one colony pod.  Each level three base also starts with a Children's Creche, a Rec. Commons, and a Recycling Tank.  The University, since it is player controlled, is slightly disadvantaged:  it doesn't get the level 1 base, and even though it is coastal, doesn't receive a sea former.

The Coalition forces are identical to the Alliance OB, except that they each receive a second, identical force, placed one the other side of the globe.  Both level 3 bases are equiped with an HQ to keep ineffiency from making these bases ineffective.  The geographical diversity of each Coalition member is important to the scenario, since it allows each one to threaten several Alliance members at once.

The map is the Huge map of Chiron, with some alterations.  Most significantly, the non-University area has been heavily pre-terraformed.  Forests were seeded randomly throughout the map and boreholes were placed liberaly around the continents.  Also, each level 3 base (excepting University Base) has at least one borehole and a nutrient/condenser/farm/soil enricher in its radius.  Each HQ also has a large patch of jungle surrounding it. There are two more such squares within the general vicinity of each HQ base, except for the Alliance HQs, which only get one extra condenser.  Also, the Unity pods were removed (I've had too many games decided by the random caprice of these things).  They were replaced liberally with special resources and monoliths.  If you don't like this, it can be reversed by choosing "randomize resources and beacons" from the map editor.  

The AI normally suffers from horrible terraforming decisions.  With the bulk of the work done for them already, however, the AI does a -much- better job.  The player, presumably able to make intelligent terraforming decisions, doesn't get as much as the AI.  There are some forests in his territory, however (it was just too dang hard without them!).

Also, one of the Spartan bases is on a new volcanic island, just a short trip from the University coast.  There is also a smaller version of the Geothermal Shallows in between the University coast and the Spartan island.  This was put there to encourage the AI to build sea bases towards the player.


The idea was to have each Alliance member being threatened by at least one Coalition force (and to have the University to be threatened by all three), but I ended up taking pity on the poor Morgans and I put them on the isle of Dexemenria by themselves.  In retrospect, this was probably a mistake, since the one of the ideas of this scenario is the player has to protect his partners.  This could be rememdied by 1) putting a series of Spartan sea bases around the isle (easy to do), or 2) extending the new volcanic isle and moving the Morgan onto the new land, sharing it with the Spartans (more effective).       

You already know about most of the diplomacy settings from my post. I checked the "cooperate with the player" flag for each of the Alliance members.

The Coalition's "Techshare, 1" power means that they will FLY up the tech tree.  I've seen Fusion Power come out on 2150 once! (although that was a fluke.  It normally comes out at about 2180 or so).  You MUST make contact with your friends and start coordinating their research efforsts, or you WILL die.  If one of the Coalition members gets the Empath Guild, you are in big trouble, since their techshare power will let them dip into EVERYONE's research pool.  If one of the Coalition members wins the goveronship, similiar trouble occurs (actually, this usually happens, since the stupid AI Alliance members refuse to support Lal).  

I also made some tweaks to the AI personalities and strategies. As per Ned's suggestion, I made all the AI's "exeptionally peaceful,"  and gave priorities in Build, Discover, and Explore.  This makes them much more interested in investing in infrastructure.  Also, the AI makes more reasonable choices about its army.  It no longer keeps building units until the support costs cripple the base.  The AI stills builds a strong army, though, so don't worry. I also turned off the "build lots of artillery" flags on any faction that noramlly has it (this flag makes them build artillery almost exclusively, an incredibly stupid thing to do).  The Hive was given an interest in colony pods, which plays to their strengths, and the Morgans and Spartans are interested in Sea and Air power.  The Believers were told to make lots of Probe teams (I can't beleive that this isn't enalbed by default!). 
    

Known issues...


First off, while pre-terraforming the map makes the AI more effective, it is a rather heavy-handed and inelegant solution.  I can't say I'm too pleased with Chiron's new look.  Oh well.

The AI builds SPs fast!  Intially, I had a mineral/mine combo in every non-player HQ radius, thinking that it would accelerate the game.  Big mistake!  Almost every lower echelon SP was snapped up by the AIs by 2120.  As it stands, you will be hard pressed to snag even one of the first few SPs. Better make it a good one!  As  a balance issue, it might not be unfair to give University Base the Weather Paradigm at the start, seeing as how Zak's territory doesn't have the wonderful pre-terraformed look. 

Turning the Conquer priority off really helps the AI make good infrastructure decisions, but does make it avoid techs like Applied Physics and Non-linear Math.  This just might make an impact rover rush possible, netting an early and too-easy win.  The tripled research rate that the Coalition enjoys means that they might have gotten some weapon techs, anyway.  I haven't tried this, so this is just speculation.

The Morgans should really be threatened by the Spartans.

The distribution of the factions is somewhat uneven.  Lal is sandwhiched between Yang and Miriam, whereas Dee is "only" threatened by Santaigo. I dunno,  some diversity is good.

The AI Alliance factions will abstain rather than vote for each other, making the governorship fall almost automatically to the Coalition.  The player should have a reasonable chance to keep the governorship out of enemy hands if he tries really hard.  It is possible that if you have the Empath Guild and have recently completed a pop boom, that you could win the election yourself (they AIs will support you, just not each other).  You'd have to have more votes than Lal to be a candidate though.  Not easy, and maybe not possible.

As a result of the setup, small random portions of the map start out visible to the player.  It's not a big deal, and I don't know how to fix it , anyway.




Some comments...

Make your normal beeline of choice, but then make sure you get the Empath Guild!  This cannot be stressed enough.  

The AI actaully does a good job using its probe teams, mixing them in with ordinary units to complicate your defenses.  You're playing the university, so you are very vulnerable to this.  The new, improved, infrastructure-loving AIs can now easily have incomes of 200+ a turn, making mind control a very real threat.  Either build some guardian probe teams, or just start over.

I turned the random events off.  While most of them were fine, the Sunspot event was very disruptive to the intended pacing.

Watch out for Advanced Ecological Engineering!  The Coalition will try to melt the ice caps and sink your capital.  If they have the governorhip, they'll veto the solar shade propsal.



Other ideas...

There is really no reason why the player has to be the University.  Any faction could work, although a warlike one would be out of flavor.  

This type of game might work really well on a more land-based map, maybe one styled after WWII Europe.

An intriguing variant would be to have some of the Alliance members start out fighting each other.  The player would have to broker peace between them before it's too late.  Naturally, this would require a new map with the Alliance members sharing borders.

Miriam could be replaced by Domai.  This would be brutal.

True masochists might want the Coalition to have four members, and the Alliance only three.  This would be extremely hard.  You'd be severly out-teched, as well as out-numbered.

I really think that this idea is interesting enough to have a custom map built for it.   I would appreciate any ideas that you might have regarding this.

Although it hasn't happened yet in this scenario, I've noticed that in hi-tech games, the AI begins to make its army exclusively out of Mind Worms.  This can be stopped by entering "Disable" as the prereq for Mind Worms in alphax.txt, although this might be a bit hard on the Gaians.






Well, I think that's all I wanted to say.  Judging from your guide, I figured you weren't the type to shy from long readme's :)



Naturally, I'd love to hear any feedack from you.  This scenario is very much  "in the rough" right now, and could definately benefit for some C&C.


Nathan Svadlenak aka "Tokamak" 



Changes in this version

Loaded a "clean" alphax.txt.  This will solve a host of problems, including the inability for factions to train native life forms.

The University's starting scout patrol is now indepenant, like I had always intended.

Oddly, the Gaians, Mogans, and Peacekeepers all had a planet score of +4!  That's been fixed.

Random events are now turned off for real.  No more pesky sunspots.

The Coalition capitol bases now all have an integral sensor.

The AI Allies are now auto-pacted to each other.  This will give them some solidarity during elections.

 


Changes made in the Classic version...

Clearly, the biggest change is that you're not playing Alien Crossfire.
 
More importantly, however, the techshare, 1 power has been replaced by the sharetech, 2 power, a significant change.  The badguys will rip through the techs very quickly, whether they inflitrate you or not.  It may be neccessary to change the argument of the sharetech line to 3 or higher.  Experiment!

Altering the factions is easy.  While in the senario editor, use the reload factions command and select the appropriate file.  Keep in mind that SMAC Down won't implement any changes you make in the faction.txt unless you do this. This has all been done for you already.  You'll only need to do this kinda thing if you decide you want change the rules even more.

Since the bad guys get such a punishing lead, you might want to go for the Planetary Datalinks to help catch up. 

Have fun!




 



  

