What do YOU want in SMAC2

quote: Originally posted by Cybergod on 03-30-2001 12:45 PM I do not fully understand Blake's idea about using nuts. Please could you explain it a bit further for the dumb (moi) .

Blake's idea was that in addition to minerals, armies need also be supported with nuts, so this limits ICS, and actually forces the player to develop and nuture each base.

It's a good idea, but i think that one unit supported by one nut is a little too expensive, maybe two or three per nut.

And maybe an option to recruit mercenaries or something from somewhere, supported per turn by energy (salary)

[Cybergod]

Nah... I think that will be too much editing. But yes they could have different ways they look (like in SMAX, where progenitor have different vehicle designs from humans) and maybe different names but in my opinion we should keep the similarities similar . You don't get that sentence? Neither do I?

[Cybergod]

**flipping hell, another double post**
[This message has been edited by Cybergod (edited March 30, 2001).]

[Cybergod]

Just who sent those emails?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

You will need to modify that speech from Star Trek to make it both original and, remember what I said about the robot speech - no punctuation. But what if the human translators could succesfully translate it fully to english, WITH punctuation?

I do not fully understand Blake's idea about using nuts. Please could you explain it a bit further for the dumb (moi) .

how about the robots techblurb speech sound like the Borg in star trek? since' they're a collective and their ultimate goal is to assimilate everyone and everything.

threats would be like : "I we are the {factionname). Lower your weapons and surrender yourselves. I we will add your disctinctiveness to our own. You will be adapted to serve us. Resistance is futile." (to much star trek)

"Assimilate this!"

what about mercenaries? i mean if you use Blake's idea of using nuts for support, there should be an alternative for momentum style players. Mercenaries, supported per turn by energy. can't be built in bases, but recruited from somewhere (i've no idea where).

[Fantasmo]

I was wondering if all these races will be using their own chassis', weapons and armor? I mean because I would not expect the two different species like Zo'or and Progenitor to be using the same things.

[Cybergod]

If you wish to use my storyline, the progenitor tried to set up a massive resonance shield around the solar system so that only their communications could go through but the zo'or messed it up with their warp signature (their two types of technologies colided) and now nobody can send anything through, until high tech transmitters are made (Susspace Communicators). However, humans and mutants can build Subspace Disruptors which will disrupt them. This means that there is additional challenge to alien victory - eg. say you are progenitor and have 6 communicators but in right bases but huamns have built additional 2 disruptors in their right bases. You will need to build to more to launch the signal which will tear the massive resonance field surrounding the system.

Of course, this storyline isn't finite.

[Fantasmo]

Why do we even have to leave Planet totally? What I mean is what if later on in the game (say 100 years) you develop an "interplanetary transmitter" (as the humans) and you send a message to the people still on Planet and you trade for special techs with them? Or the "interplanetary transmitter" can be used to initiate a Zo'or or Progenitor victory (like a Subspace Generator in SMAX).
[This message has been edited by Fantasmo (edited March 30, 2001).]

[Cybergod]

Just got 2 emails from an unknown Amm43oct@aol.com. This is the 1st one:

"HAVE A THING WHERE YOU CAN CREATE YOUR OWN FACTIONS AND SHARE THIS IDEA WITH EVERYONE ELSE"

2nd:

"WHERE I SAID THING I MENT IDEA"



Did any one of you lot send it? By the way thanks Blake for giving an alternative idea for the mutants' existence. Do you people think that my story is plausible?

Also I don't understand how could fungus (aka xenofungus) get to Earth? Maybe Unity 2 carried it over by accident? Usurpers seeking revenge? Or is it something new? Idea: have the native mutants (non-faction) feed off them so there you go - another way to have fungal towers! ie. Have the camp in the middle wth it growing food around to breed more menace for the colonists.

There should be more techs based on the zo'or sciences. The resonance is the progenitor science, while the big blocky nano and theory (Relativity, UFT, Int. Integrity...) sciences are robotic and human. In my story (I've taken ideas from the world-wide UFO & abduction reports) the zo'or are fascinated by medical and warp-space sciences, so maybe tech along those lines?

Another idea sprung up. What if different techs gave different things for different species? This way, the basic tech tree will be same for everyone, so that factions could exchange or steal tech with each other, but it will also reflect different views and uses of the techs by different species. To unconfuse you, here's an insert from a supposed earth.txt file (instead of alpha.txt), where I'm using my Rec Commons as an example. This way, the facilities will have the same effect for everyone but 'everyone' will have their own way of getting it:

...
;
; Base Facilities
;
; hName, Have, mName, Have, aName, Have, rName, Have, Cost, Maint, hPreq, mPreq, aPreq, rPreq, hFree, mFree, aFree, rFree, Effect (which is same for everyone)
;
; hName = Human name of facility
; mName = Mutant name of facility
; aName = Alien name of facility
; rName = Robot name of facility
; Cost = Construction cost in minerals (I think this should be the same for everyone)
; Maint = Maintenance cost in energy per turn (this should be the same aswell)
; hPreq = Human technology prerequisite
; mPreq = Mutant technology prerequisite
; aPreq = Alien technology prerequisite
; rPreq = Robot technology prerequisite
; hFree = No longer supported for humans
; mFree = No longer supported for mutants
; aFree = No longer supported for aliens
; rFree = No longer supported for robots
; Effect= Brief description of effect
;
#FACILITIES
...
Recreation Commons, 1, Mutant Respiratories, 1, Drone Grounds, 1, Recreation Commons, 0, 4, 1, Psych, Psych, Psych, Psych, SentEco, SentEco, SentEco, SentEco, Fewer Drones
...

One probelem with this is the lines maybe being too long. This could be done the same way for abil/weap/armour/other things. Hey! I've just found a solution for the MOO3 (Master's of Orion 3) guys who were trying to find a way 2 have different tech trees for everyone. PLZ someone tell them .

Now let me tell you about the Ultimate Conversion Victory (robot spec win), fictional style. The robots need to reach a tech similar to Matter Editation, maybe higher. It is a SP which, when completed, unleashes billions of nanoprobes everywhere which will use up everything (including living creatures) to construct and use it to create a Robotic Empire. The Earth would be created to something like a great construction ground. All living things which are not uploaded (ie. factions not in pact with the robots), uploaded meaning uploaded to a network so they 'save' themselves by existing in the robots' virtual world, will be destroyed. The project cost will be encreased by the number of enemy space colonies (probably only recreation colonies) in existence, beacuse they'll have to 'convert' them aswell. I actually had a dream about this victory and, as far as I can remember it, it went like this:

Pcture of Earth from space, with strange-looking ships in orbit. Sddenly a screen counting time apperars infront, as if floating in mid-air (though no air in space ), and an artificial voice counting in the background. All of a sudden the ships in orbit explode releasing (view close up) billions and billions of nanoprobes onto Earth. A voice similar to Stephen Hawkings is heard, I forgot what it said but it was about this:

"...everyone thing will pay the price to their suppoed makers meaning aliens and humans and mutants alike ... robots will reign supreme and when this is done the whole universe itself is for our taking..."

And I saw the Earth shimmering in nano-liquid which spread all over during the above speech. I saw people, still consciouss and screaming in terror, being used as a raw material. In the end, everything looks like a huge metalic ball all silver and shinning...

Spooky... Found an idea how the robots will 'speak'. They wouldn't use their biological bodies to do this so they wouldn't have punctuation marks or capital letters in their sentences and would seem to use loads of 'and's. So it might look like this, when you talk to them...

"your kind has very well learned that through cooperation mutual accomplishents shall be reached and therefore should not we trade technologies so that I we give you [techname] for [techname] would you comply"

I've taken the "I we" part from the Greg Bear's "Anvil to Stars", where the Browthers, an alien species which works as a collective, speaks like that .

Not sure about the rest. The progenitor speech should stay the same. The zo'or communicate with each other telepathically so mayber speech full of grammatic errors would be suitable. The mutants would probably have a human speech, not so sure about that though.

What about the way the units look for everyone? And citizen graphics? Zo'or should have separate citizen graphics from progenitor and would probably look insect-like. Absolutelly NO IDEA about the robots or mutants. Suggestions?

I really like the idea of having more than 7 factions. Maybe have a scroll bar in the faction select screen which you scroll to get the desired number of factions. But this would mean being forced to play only 7 until first custom factions are created. Maybe include edited original SMAC/SMAX faction on the disk?

Please comment, I'm going off to my friends, finally ...

[Lord Maxwell]

Layered AI might solve some of the problems, but not all. Ie if it thinks on separate layers, only propagating pertinent information up and down, then we can simplify the representation of reality enough to allow for pretty fast thinking. The problem here is twofold, first of we must design a game that can be simplified in various hierarchical views, and second we need to make certain the simplifications for representation are correct.

But the problem can be solved, and most likely will be solved, using massive parallell computing. Every scrap of a second you are not making use of 100% of the CPU the genetic algorithms can search for new rules to add to the ruleset.

Any one move the opponent makes is made using a ruleset and a KM system. (Which I figure is similar to the current system, some rules and a binary search of the knowledge representation for rule matching.)

Now three things can be done to better the AI from my simple standpoint.

A) Split it into levels, one that makes strategic decisions for the entire nation, next level manages subsets such as military etc etc. When the military AI needs troops to attack it asks the main AI for a declaration of war, then it places requests for cities to build the units it needs. It then collects those units and hands them over to an army AI. The military AI decides "Attack the island containing Mount Planet", the army AI decides to implement this using a feint from the west and a massive landing on the northeast, thus neutralizing his major cities first.

B) Allow for spare CPU time to search for new rules.

C) Rate rules according to a point system on how well they play, and turn them in to a central repository and check new rulesets out. Most apolytoners average one good strategy idea each (being generous here and if your computer could average as much then half the battle would be won. It would evolve, and you don't need to do all the math for SETI or break 50-60 bit RSA keys all by yourself. Distributed computing works pretty darn well.

You still only need the KM system to handle moves of the opponent AI, but at the very same time the game is learning from you.

If you want to be really advanced you can have it learn from watching the human, but that is fairly much more complicated. (Ref theorem proving AI:s.)

It is also not possible to look a priori possible to determine how much time and effort an AI will need for a certain problem, it has to be tested. As in the above mentioned theorem proving AI:s which were constructed to find and prove new mathematical theorems the problem proved not to be wether or not they could find new theorems, they could. (Actually they churned them out like there was no tomorrow.) But the problem was to make them communicate them so that humans could follow and verify the proof. (Still such a high level of human interpretation is needed before the theorems are approved so that little time gain is actually made. The theorems and proofs are correct, just not understandable that easily.)

[Blake]

Lord maxwell, have you read the thread on Civ3 suggestions/ideas?

"Arguments why its nearly impossible to program an "almost human" AI." http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum6/HTML/001531.html

In short the game world has too many damn variables for the AI to be able to think and evolve, *maybe* not too many for a simulator, but for a game speed is important. I am strongly in favour of having it use scripts, but flexible scripts which can be modified by a player! It doesn't even have to be easy to do, just as long as it can be modified without required hacking skills. This way the scripts are improved by players as time goes by. The AI doesn't need to be able to evolve if the humans can tell it exactly what it should do. I'm waiting with interest to see how Stars!SuperNova AI and been-counter counters work out.

On beancounting I absolutely agree, much of the ability to MM should be removed, for example making it so you can't assign individual workers. That's right CAN'T, however much a player may wish to beancount he can't. This is because once one player goes hardcore with the MM other players must too if they want to compete. However much testing is crucial, too much automation makes it seem like you are fighting the automation rather than the enemy.

[Lord Maxwell]

quote: Originally posted by Blake on 03-26-2001 04:34 PM Unfortunately AI's fail to understand there is a tommorow. They exist only in the "now" so to speak.

Nope, a well designed AI can plan for several rounds using something as simple as a binary search algorithm. (Going for depth first searches if time is limited, width first if a better solution is wanted.) Most chess AI:s do this.

The civ games don't have an AI per se, it doesn't really even try to emulate thinking, it just follows a script. Pretty much it tries to follow a strategy manual to the last letter.

As long as scripts are used to run computer players, then Blake is correct.

quote: What should be done is improved understanding of terraforming and facilities, and the importance of them, this should be implemented in an editable file so it can be changed as strategies evolve, with such things as priorities for different terraforming, and where it can (not) go, and ratios between terraforming types. As much as possible concerning AI should be in .txt files, AI's can't evolve, but humans can update them to use advanced strategies.

Sure they can evolve. Did you fall asleep in 1969 and wake up yesterday? A simple combination of rule based knowledge system with a genetic algorithm rule development AI can give both evolution and speed of execution. (When free time is available the AI can search for new and clever solutions, when time is limited it simply implements the rules it already has.)

AI:s can for example prove new (and previously unknown) mathematical theorems. The main problem in that venue was not to make the AI find and prove new theorems. (It does that day and night, at a frightening speed) it is for the AI to explain it's proof so that a human can understand and verify the proof. (Lot's of research goes into this.)

quote: One of the main reasons the SMAX AI stalls is because it doesn't update it's terraforming - and it doesn't use most of it's terraforming. If the AI's understanding of infrastructure and facilities was improved to be comparable to a human player (or cheated to make it look like it) then it would be much much stronger.

That could be made possible by a combination of a KM system and a genetic algorithm. Offcourse the icing on the cake would be a repository for checking in and checking out new rulesets for the KM system. (An apolyton for AI:s.) The KM system (Knowledge Management, uses a set of heuristic rules, often searched as a binary tree. Regularly implemented in beloved prolog) is far from the best system, but it would ease up both implementation and bug hunting.

Maybe I should use this for my thesis... (It might be more a doctorate study. For a team. Of ten. Or more.


And now for something completely different:

This game VASTLY favours the accountant (bean counter). The person who is willing to spend an hour doing a turn is rewarded over the player who plays a good intuitive game. And there is very little strategy actually involved in playing this game. You spend five-ten minutes out of 12 hours making strategic decisions, the rest of the time you are a tactical level dictator with unlimited power and perfectly obedient citizens.

A good game to have a look at is Go, the history of championships shows that accountants and intuitive players are about as good. (Atleast at the highest levels, roughly as many grand masters have been accountants as intuitive players iirc.)

I suggest that alot of the tactical elements are dropped, in favour for more strategic elements. (Though the cynic in me figures he must look elsewhere for both that and better AI, Sid had one good idea, and it's getting old.

quote: Originally posted by Blake on 03-29-2001 08:56 PM In the continuing war against ICS an idea would be to have military units require population to build, and food to support. This would mean departing from the 2 nuts per city size, and having fractional amounts. Large well developed bases with good terraforming would be able to easily afford the population and food to support the troops, while crummy little bases wouldn't. The result of this would be factions being able to cheaply support a # of units proportional to the faction population, rather than # of bases.

This is a really good idea. I like it. It would make momentum style players become more hybrid. No more bases as merely barracks/war factory.

quote: Originally posted by Fantasmo on 03-29-2001 07:06 PM Something cool would be "Mutant Hordes" a la Mad Max, they have small camps where they are 'built' and they then roam about attacking anyone they please. The camps will randomly generate new warriors but they cannot research technology, design new units, terraform or use diplomacy. You should actually FEAR them because of their massive attacks that can wipe out several bases before being stopped. If you capture their camps you should get a monetary bonus because of recovering their 'loot'.

Something like fungal towers?

[Cybergod]

Right… The following are my ideas for a new game based on SMAC/X. I have no idea right now what it should be called, so I’m leaving that to you people in the forums and the Firaxis team, if they should want to make it.

I'm worried if I post this, then Firaxis couldn't make it for some odd reason...

Basic Storyline

Following on from SMAX story, the Usurpers have managed to conquer the Caretakers and were soon on their way of reaching Godhood. This is when humans have finally discovered that it is time to settle their differences and join to defend humanity from the growing alien threat, some would say almost too late. The Usurper leader has declined to call up a home fleet, instead he altered to everyone that the Usurpers would seek Godhood, and nothing else. The human factions then united into 2 teams. One group that will work on a ship which will travel to the Solar System within a day, using scrambled progenitor technology. And one, some might say kamikaze, team which will stay on Planet to sabotage the Usurper attempts of completing the Ascend to Transcendence and create a diversion for the others.

Using resonance stealth technology, the colony ship, named Unity 2, secretly sails off to the ravages of the Earth, unnoticed by the Usurper space guards. During that trip, the kamikaze group that stayed decides that it’s time to attempt to destroy the Usurper Empire, which covered most of the planet. Mass sabotage took place and several Planet Busters were used. The Usurper leader, maddened that his whole empire is in ruins, slaughters every single human left on Planet and during that finds out about the secret ship. He then sends his son to the Solar System, as a representative of the Usurper Empire, to finish off the humans that fled.

The Unity 2 Ship, due to lack of knowledge in space travel, creates a massive warp signal, caused by the stealth ability and the excess resonance. A local alien species detects it and sends a colony ship and a battle ship to the Solar System, mistaking the resonance signature to the technology of their archenemies, the progenitor. Both of these races set out to stimulate creation of intelligent life on faraway planets. It turns out that the United Tribes of Zo’or, as they call themselves, have created us, humans. The records of UFOs turn out to be actually them monitoring our progress. They were interested in mammal-like, animal creatures, while progenitors were interested in intelligent plant-life, like xenofungus. The Tau Ceti system was actually the place where the two species met for the first time. The Zo’ors discovered that the Manifolds have nearly joined with the great fungal mind they have created. The Zo’ors then induced genetically modified viruses to attack the fungus and destroy the Manifold plan. They succeeded unnoticed and the Manifold creatures split into the two familiar sides (Caretakers and Usurpers). Now they believed that the Manifolds were messing with their own experiment on Earth, so they rushed to defend it.

On Earth, meanwhile, there had been almost total devastation of the whole biosphere. Species were dying every second and resources were being used up. Also wars waged to totally change the shape of the planet. Two nations came up from the chaos, one believing in industrial development and space industries for survival and the other in conquest as a necessity. Also a new intelligent lifeform has, as is believed, artificially developed. Neither human side has taken the responsibility of creating it. The new species is a type of fish, similar to both dolphins and humans. It is thought that they are a hybrid of the two. The species live in water but can also survive for a period of time on land. A theory suggests that if they wanted, through tough training, they could survive on land for months even. Their communication is dolphin-like, but humans have not yet entirely understood their ’speech’. More study is necessary.

The Unity 2 arrives in orbit of Earth slightly earlier than the two alien ships. The earth’s weak communication devices pick them up and guide them to a landing site. Meanwhile, in the skies, the two alien species meet and declare outright war on each other, and, shortly after a battle, emergency lifepods are released onto Earth. During the Unity 2’s descent, a virus from a paranoid terran hacker devastates the digital systems, which then, accidentally, spring up to self-conscience. The robotic conscience wishes to land separately from humans and pursue it’s own existence on Earth. During the virus attack all centauri and robotic technologies were lost, as were the Manifold and Zo’or technologies during the space battles. All of them now have to start from scratch on a planet, where technology is so backward, due to necessity for survival, not even impact riffles are produced! And it’s the year 2300, roughly (any other suggestion for the M.Y.?).

The Usurpers try to set up a resonance shield around the whole solar system before Earthfall but the Zo’ors’ warp signature ’messes-up’ their attempts. No communication or space travel of any kind is possible for any of the alien species for as much as thousand years or until they discover a high technology that will allow them to ‘tear’ the massive resonance field.

Species and their Specialities

Specials

Due to the hundreds of years humans were on Planet, they have been under constant pressure from the Planetmind. Their brains therefore had undergone an evolutionary development, resulting in creation of a new human species called Homo Centaurus. The evolution has given them enhanced PSI abilities and slightly higher concentration. The humans who fled from the Alpha Centauri (meaning factions with ‘CENTARUS, 0’ line in their file) therefore receive an automatic +10% PSI bonus in both defence and attack from the PSI mutants (see The Post-Apocalyptic Earth section) and other PSI creatures.

Humans that stayed on Earth (faction files without any parameter to indicate a specific species) receive no such PSI bonuses however. But they do receive an automatic one less drone at every base, due to the harsh environment and global events they’ve gone through.

Both versions of humans may win an Economical, Conquest, Diplomatic and Transcendence victory. Also both versions vote in the Terran Council and receive a –1 PLANET rating until they discover a technology similar to Centauri Meditation (maybe Gaian Meditation?), because the so-called Spirit perceives them as destroyers.

Things get more complicated with the mutant/native (meaning factions with ‘NATIVE, 0’ in their file). Their eco-damage is halved in every one of their bases due to their special connections with the so-called ‘Gaia’ spirit (again, see The Post-Apocalyptic Earth section). They do not need to build the ‘Voice of Gaia’ SP to achieve transcendence and the final project ‘Ascend to Transcendence’ costs significantly less to build (-35%). However, they may never construct Thermal Boreholes themselves, and additionally Condensers, Drill to Aquifer and Soil Enrichers take +50% longer to build.

The native/mutant factions may win a Conquest, Diplomatic and Transcendence victory. They do anticipate in the Terran Council due to human sympathy for them. Also they receive a –1 ECONOMY until they discover technology similar to Planetary Economics, due to their backward, primitive ways of trade.

The robotic factions (factions with ‘ROBOT, 0’ in their file) receive no Drones or Talents in any of their bases (meaning they cannot build Drone/Talent enhancement facilities). They cannot execute a Population Boom without the Cloning Vats. However, they only require half of the nutrient requirements per citizen (rounded up) due to their efficient use of embodied robotic drones. Also this means that the POLICE ratings in Social Engineering is completely eliminated (both + and -). They automatically receive an additional +1 EFFIC (when they discover tech similar to Planetary Networks) and –2 PLANET rating (one of the –s gets taken away when they discover a tech similar to Centauri Meditation, but then they’ll still have –1 PLANET)

A robotic faction does not take part in the Terran Council and they can win by Conquest, Economic and, their species’ special victory condition, Ultimate Conversion Victory (see the Victory Conditions section)

All the alien factions (faction with ‘PROGENITOR, 0’, ‘ZOOR, 0’ and ‘ALIEN, 0’) have an automatic directed research, but not an automatic survey of the planet. ‘PROGENITOR, 0’ being a progenitor faction, ‘ZOOR, 0’ being a Zo’or faction and ‘ALIEN, 0’ being a user-created alien species’ faction. All of their prototyped units receive an automatic 2-square line of sight. They have a built-in –1 EFFICIENCY because they are all members of far-flung space empires.

As before, the alien factions do not anticipate in the Terran Council and have an Energy Grid at every base, but this time the Energy Grid is a facility which can be destroyed by enemy probe teams (see the Base Improvements section). Their victory conditions are only by Conquest, Economic (but that costs +25% to achieve) and ‘Call Home Fleet’ (also known as in the forums, ‘ET Phone Home’ &#61514 . There is additional challenge to achieving ‘Call Home Fleet’ victory, since the non-alien factions can construct Sub-Space Disrupters (again see the Base Improvements section).

Pre-set Diplomacy

The Zo’or factions have an automatic vendetta on progenitor factions. Progenitor factions additionally have an instant vendetta on all human factions from the AC system. A user-created alien faction (ALIEN, 0) does not have an instant vendetta on anyone but may not sign pact with any other alien faction.

More ideas to come...