Fixing ICS

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Curiosity
I would have to say that I don't find my strategy converging, as such. For example, in my game with Flubber I'm playing 3 factions in 3 distinctively different styles. Each style is a reaction to both the faction's innate bonuses and the terrain I've been given.

Maybe I'm just not good enough, to play one style regardless.

I do the same thing-- maybe I'm not good enough either

[Lazerus]

Or maybe your better then the rest of us who seem to flounder around trying to play the gaians when we're used to a planet raping industrial faction like drones or hive ?

[Chaos Theory]

If you're controlling multiple factions, you can do some more interesting things not normally possible. For example, you can have one of your factions completely ignore energy and tech, getting all it needs from another faction, and instead producing a gigantic army under something like Police State/Planned/Power (yes, I know Yang can do this, but he has no particular combat bonuses).

Still, I expect that using multiple factions very skillfully would preclude much variety in the combined playing style.

If it were possible, what would you think of removing the ability to remove drones by turning them into specialists? That is, Deirdre's transcend-level size 5 base would have 4 drones before facilities/psych/bureaucracy, whether or not it had that many workers.

[Chaos Theory]

Re: Lazarus
I play ten of the factions. I only play seven of them well, however:
Zak (Demo/FM/Wealth with pop booms)
Yang (PS/Planned/Wealth -> PS/Planned/Knowledge with specialists)
Morgan ( (Simple | Demo) / (FM | Green ) / (Wealth | Knowledge) )
Aki (Demo/FM/Wealth and arbitrary Labs/Econ %)
Domai (Demo/Planned/Wealth or Demo/FM/Wealth)
Deirdre (Demo/Planned/Wealth)
Lal (Demo/FM/Wealth with pop booms)

The other three I don't play particularly well yet:
Sven
Miriam
Roze

I have a hard time adapting to oceanic style, but I haven't tried ICS with Sven yet, either. I don't have much experience with Miriam because I HATE her and Roze is aggravatingly bugged (though I have a pretty good fix for the bug).

I don't play Santi or Cha Dawn well, because I don't play them much, and because I hate low industry, and I don't care to play the Progenitors, especially in multiplayer.

For the seven factions that I'm good at, pretty much one pattern of city placement and unit/building production will work, with minor faction-specific deviations (e.g. police for Yang, fungus-trawling units for Dee, emphasis on VW for Zak)

[Rubin]

Originally posted by Chaos Theory
[...] Roze is aggravatingly bugged (though I have a pretty good fix for the bug). [...]

A bug fix!?! How? If you are referring to this post:

My take on fixing Roze is, give her +1 probe instead of +2, give her robustness against Probe, and since that's 9 mods and the limit's 8, remove her SOCIAL, -POLICE entry. That way:

Case Original Altered
Start +2 Probe +1 Probe
PSA +4(0) Probe +3 Probe
Knowl +0 Probe +0 Probe
Both +2 Probe +2 Probe

Then maybe you could elaborate on pros and cons (maybe a new thread). I am VERY interested!

[Chaos Theory]

That post is what I was referring to. I didn't bother considering pros and cons, just how close I can emulate the intended behavior of Roze's faction. Pre-PSA, she is weaker than she ought to be, though not by much. Removing the -1 police rating isn't much of a boon either, but some faction ability had to go. If you think she's still too weak, you can tweak her probe costs down from 75%.

[Rubin]

Chaos Theory: Reducing Roze to +1 probe and giving her robustness to probe only add up to 8 mods in my version. Am I missing something again?

This is how she looks like:
Free tech x 2 (Information+Planetary Networks)
Social benefit x 2 (+probe and -police)
75% probe cost
Free Covert Ops
Free Probe Team
Robust probe

[gwillybj]

Data Angels unedited:[list=1][*]TECH, InfNet[*]TECH, PlaNets[*]SOCIAL, ++PROBE[*]SOCIAL, -POLICE[*]PROBECOST, 75[*]FREEFAC, 34[*]TECHSHARE, 3[*]UNIT, 6[/list=1]Adding ROBUST, PROBE makes 9.
I wonder, though, if TECHSHARE counts among the "8 limit", since SHARETECH does not?

In SMAC, a faction is limited to any combination of 8 among this set:
TECH, FACILITY, UNIT, SOCIAL, ROBUST, IMMUNITY, IMPUNITY, PENALTY, FUNGNUTRIENT, FUNGMINERALS, FUNGENERGY, VOTES.
Any of them may appear more than once except the three FungResources and Votes.

But there is no limit to this set (although each may appear only once):
MORALE, PSI, RESEARCH, DRONE, TALENT, ENERGY, INTEREST, COMMERCE, POPULATION, HURRY, TECHCOST, SHARETECH, TERRAFORM, COMMFREQ, MINDCONTROL, FANATIC, FREEPROTO.
These can all be included beyond the "8 limit" of items. You can include all in one faction if you want to (DRONE and TALENT cancel out if they are equal).

These are the additional items from SMAX:
AQUATIC, ALIEN, FREEFAC, REVOLT, NODRONE, WORMPOLICE, FREEABIL, PROBECOST, DEFENSE, OFFENSE, TECHSHARE, TECHSTEAL.

Do any of them count against the "8 limit"? Or would all of them be among the unlimited-but-only-once?

[Rubin]

New thread on the probe bug here. FYI.