Turns of ADB001 - Aldeberan MP Scenario

[Scipio Centaurus]

2301 off to Qantaga.

Good luck!

Sorry about the tamper message. I started the game as a SP scenario and had to do it over as MP.

Is human inter-faction communication allowed from the start? Or should we wait until some in-game event triggers the possibility of communication?

- Scipio

[Qantaga]

I do have the turn. I am heading out for a long drive this afternoon (no more planes for me for awhile), so it will be later this evening before I can play it.

I do need Arima's e-mail before I can pass it along since the e-mail link on Apolyton doesn't allow for attachments (although I could just post it here on the thread if necessary).

If you want to keep your e-mail private, send it to me at:

qantaga@aol.com

Thanks.

Oh, and my personal choice would be to wait until you discover commlinks in the game, but I am happy to play with immediate contact if the rest of you prefer.

[johndmuller]

Edit: I'm putting the turn order in so that I can remember

Game order and factions:

Scipio Centaurus : Syndicate
Quantaga : Planetlovers
Arima : Peacemakers
JohnDMuller : Nauticon
Smack : Outlaw (UNF)

AI: Galactics, Universality






Smack:

Just so I am sure I know what I'm doing. . .

I put the contents of the Main Download into a subdirectory (I called it "AldebSMP", but I don't suppose that matters) of the "Scenarios" subdirectory, which is a subdirectory of "Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri" which is seemingly the root of the Alpha Centauri install (there is a higher "Firaxis Games" subdirectory, but I think that is irrelevant).

I am still unclear as to whether I should put the contents of the Graphics download into the aforementioned "Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri" subdirectory or into the "AldebSMP" subdirectory of the "Scenarios" subdirectory. Perhaps it will find them in either if it follows the seeming conventions mentioned in the .txt files. It doesn't look problematic in any case since they seem to be unique file names. Nearly all of the other .pcx files are in that main "Sid Meier's . . ." subdirectory, but at least one of the provided scenarios has a units.pcx file in its Scenarios subdirectory. I take it these files provide the images for the bases and leaders and so forth; is that true? units too? Please offer the suggested location - try not to cop out with any of this "on the Mac" stuff.

While I was looking at the other Scenario files, I noticed that they all had a Scenario.txt file and yours has a regular alpha.txt file instead - is that what distinguishes between a Scenario and a Mod? The more I think about it, it occurs to me that you could probably combine the two as the scenario.txt files seem to be about victory conditions instead of game parameters.

Scanning through the alpha.txt file, it seems that you made a bunch of changes, some of which are mostly in name, but I'm sure that some are significant deviations; is there a brief summary somewhere of what to expect to be different, or is the discovering of the differences supposed to be one of the main fun things?

[Scipio Centaurus]

I'll take a whack at this since I use a PC and have some limited experience messing with scenarios. The TXT files (including alpha.tx) can be left in the scenario folder you created. SMAC on a PC apparantly does not access files in scenario subfolders, but that's OK, because the SAV file you will receive each turn should incorporate the modified Aldebaran rules logic from those TXT files. Just like the 'no-crawlers' mods to alpha.txt passed through to each player in ACS003 - without requiring subsequent player to load any modified files.

If you want the special graphics for Aldebaran (PCX files) you will need to load these into the default game directory - Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. You will want to backup all PCX files in this default directory before loading in any new ones. Note that if you do not get these files installed properly, the scenario will run OK, but you may get incorrect graphics for leaders, bases, units and whatnot. A survivable error.

- Scipio

[Avenoct]

A link back to the signup thread

JohnD,

As Scipio has pointed out, once the scenario is started you don't need the .txt files for the scenario...on a PC. I was mistaken about that. This means our save-games will probably be larger than usual as they incorporate the rules changes that got the scenario running. It also means no-one but the first player (Scipio) needed the Scenario folder. I could have even played out the first turn then switched the clock back to 2301 and noone but the creator (me) would have needed the mod. This is a great thing for future games.

None of the Aldebaran PCX (graphics) files have the same name as any original file, therefore, if you download them from the Network Node, you can just add them to your game directory along side the original graphics and you'll never notice them except in playing Aldebaran. So, you can skip the step Scipio mentions above.

About the Units.pcx file. I don't know why you'd find that in a scenario unless someone modified the actual units in that graphic. I havn't in Aldebaran.

About the Scenario.txt file. That's a handy file to customize the text for victories and opening a scenario. It has nothing to do with alpha.txt. The reason you don't see any alpha.txt in an original Firaxis scenario is because they always use the original rules, hence, it's not needed and goes to the default alpha.txt in the main game directory. You are correct in that if you download a scenario (from anywhere) and the alpha.txt is not identical (and redundant) to the original, you are in fact playing a mod.

So, to summarize and answer your questions JohnD:

Playing the Game (much simpler than I'd thought )
1. You're emailed the turn. Save it anywhere.
2. Start Smac, MP, Scenario, Load Scenario, load your turn. You'll be prompted for a password, just like an MP regular game. The first turn you get to define your own password.
3. Play the turn
4. Save the turn and pass it along.

Graphics (optional): Go to the www.NetworkNode.org site and download the Aldebaran Graphics. Place the expanded files into the same directory as all the original graphics.

Getting background on the techtree, etc. I've made some comparisons on my webpage, but as we all know, Yahoo is punishing me for being popular by making my page accessable only occasionally. As an alternative, the story can be found in the 'Polyton Fiction threads for AC, and the Alphatext comparison can be found in the Creation threads under the Aldebaran Pre-Release Notes. You're right that some things have changed in name only. These are the things that can't actually be changed in functionality (SP's, Facilities, etc.). I don't think any change is so vast that a player needs background to play, but nonetheless, a perusal of the above-mentioned forums could be helpful.

In a very real sense, you are the first visitors to an unexplored planet! I think you'll find that we're all going to be discovering as we go. This first group landing on Aldebaran is going to be quite interesting. As I said before, if you'd like to role-play your turns, a reading of the background story should help.

Alrighty, I've emailed Arima's email address to Qantaga. I can't tell you how excited I am without embarrasing myself.

-Smack

[Scipio Centaurus]

Some things I noticed while starting the Aldebaran MP scenario:

1> The first player must select the factions that will be played by the humans, and the AI. Is the SC file setup to use only the human versions of the faction TXT files? Or is everyone playing with the souped-up AI versions? Unless you 'fix' the human controlled faction there will be no way for the scenario to know how to differentiate. If you fix the factions, you can simply create a scenario specific alpha.txt file with the human and AI faction TXT files preselected.

2> In looking at the datalinks (online help) for my faction (Syndicate) I noticed that the leader graphic was the guy (from the Stargate TV series?) who had been the leader of the Planetlovers in my previous attempt to playtest Aldebaran. Shouldn't it have been the Asian fellow (Yang's Minister of Finance)? The Syndicate help text seemed to be OK, though.

3> The Syndicate graphics were Gaian green and had the 3/4 dome base design of the Planetlover faction instead of Hive blue with the multi-tower base design as in the previous playtest. Don't know if you intended those changes.

- Scipio

PS. Might be a good idea for everyone to let you know what their password is in case anyone must take some time off from the game for vacation or whatever. I think we can trust you... right?

PPS. As an exercise to help the players get to know the tech tree, players might want to look up crawlers (ASU?) in the datalinks and then backtrack through the tech prerequisites for that unit and compare the results to the tech prereqs for crawlers in SMAC. You'll be surprised!

[Qantaga]

Very cool, Smack. I am extremely impressed just with what I have seen so far. I am really looking forward to this game.

2301 sent to Peacemaker Arima.

[Avenoct]

Wow, that's hilarious, I had to swap the positions of the Syndicate and Planetlovers as the usual play order is: Planetlover, Syndicate, yadda. So the game loads the proper faction, but the positional graphics. Hehe...I don't think Firaxis really thought anyone would reload the factions for the scenarios.

As to the player/ai factions, I reloaded all the human versions in the above step of swapping. One way to check would be to go into the SE and if you have mongo bonuses to Industry for no reason, things have gotten gnarled. I don't anticipate that will happen. The info you didn't have was that I'd pre-loaded the proper versions of each faction. Sorry for the graphics swap..maybe these factions have had some fashion consulting.

-Smack

[Arima]

Good luck to all!

Turn sent to Nauticon JohnDMuller

[Avenoct]

Now that we're started, I thought I'd mention that I set things up as a Thinker level game. When you meet the Universality or Galactics you'll understand .

Also, I'm for the Commlink only when met in-game option. However, you can email me privately if you have game questions that other players wouldn't/shouldn't know about. I'm treating my own faction as a sort of in-game CMN. I'll play tough, but I'll try to be second fiddle.

-Smack

[Avenoct]

Game Play Hints

Perhaps bridging the gap between the total unknown (for those that havn't played or read about Aldebaran previously) and a complete spoiler, here are a few things to keep in mind.

-Crawlers come quite a bit later
-Pop-booming is very tough till the late game
-Monoliths, the Ocean, Recycling tanks, Mineral bonuses all 'improved'
-some facilities that used to have upkeep are now free, and cheap to build
-some weapons have unexpected costs in terms of building
-choppers come in 4 flavors: a transport, an air-defense, a light attack, and an 'open-chassis'. The first three are cookie-cutters, don't retro-engineer them.
-There are quite a few valuable SE choices. It may be worth using the help-text to navigate around them and aim for fitting choices.
-Artillery and elevation play a larger role.
-Many more Secret Projects are available in the early game, so get ready if you want to build any.
-you can add the equivalent of soil-enrichers to the ocean, but you'll need to use the menu 'terraform' option as it has no key-bound.
-the ocean is rich
-the tech-tree has been called a tech 'shrubbery' because you will be getting many choices each time you enter the tech-chooser. It's low and flat. Keep in mind that there are so many choices that you might not be displayed every 'legal' choice.

I'll probably think of a few more, but that should help a bit.

-Smack

[Scipio Centaurus]

Originally posted by Smack
Now that we're started, I thought I'd mention that I set things up as a Thinker level game.

Hope you set that to override the scenario start menu, because I picked Transcend when offered the choice of difficulty levels.

Also, I'm for the Commlink only when met in-game option.

Sounds good to me.

- Scipio

[Avenoct]

Another oddity of this format. I'll know more when my turn comes up.

I just thought of something...did you choose 'play MP scenario' or 'load MP scenario' Scipio? It may be that you chose 'play' and hence were re-prompted for the input. I'll have to experiment with that a bit.

-Smack

[Scipio Centaurus]

Don't remember the exact sequence and terminology. I had to try a few times because my first attempt wound up being a solo play version. I think I started down the SCENARIO menu branch instead of the MULTIPLAYER menu branch. Or maybe it was the other way around...

There is a scenario editor option to force the difficulty level.

- Scipio

[Avenoct]

I'm glad I'm not the kind of person who has to control all the variables before I can act. Especially wrt the PC and multiplayer I feel like a blind engineer trying to design a perfect lense.