Removing AI weaknesses

[Sandman25]

waab

Sorry, I was confusing you. I spent all the facilities to build Virtual World. Merchant Exchange was built about 50 years ago and it was not hard at all (built by pure minerals). I am not crazy to have my capital unguarded to build Merchant Exchange unless it is OCC where it is the best SP IMHO.
I am leader in territory but still it is very small and I have about 12 cities - the map is huge but seems to have 90% of water.

I went for pillage and probe indeed, infiltrating everyone and destroying terraforming. Though I preffer to make a truce when possible provided it's impossible to steal tech and almost impossible to capture bases so the war is aimless. And I still have to find Morgan

But I don't want to make any alliances because I want a challenge

[waab]

that explains a little bit...Virtual World is nice to have. Well as myself never plays with Spartans I can't help you much. If you really need to wage war to expand and you only have 2 in offence you really need to use massive amount of cheap infantary (it will be costly) otherwise try a little bit ICS and try get fossil fuels.

Which AI are you wagging war against?

If you want to make it possible to steal tech with probes you can change that in Alpha.txt of course I don't know how you game will react to suddently changed rules. I prefere not to be able to steal tech I just hate when my allies start stealing tech from me instead of just asking.

[Sandman25]

Well, actually I am not asking for help
I am just complaining the early game is not brilliantly balanced regarding weapon/armor. Perhaps it is not problem of SNAC, but my "luck" in trading tech (I remember I got High Energy Chemistry which gave +4 armor from AI). In standard SMAC the difference between +2 weapon and +3 armor still allows Spartans capture bases.

My empire consists of 5 islands already and I ran out of adjacent islands so I can't make new bases peacefully. I guess I will have to populate some islands behind gaia's territory while wating for Missile (Hive has it already so I hope to get it soon by my own science). Then I will be able to easily capture Gaia's seabases near my continent and finally start attacking Gaia and Hive. SNAC decreases value of sea bases (0 mineral in base square, 0 mineral for recycling center), I have size 7 non-sea bases with 1-2 minerals And no Industrial Automation, though I am going to ignore Supply Crawlers for this game any way
Perhaps I like wargames too much

[Sandman25]

I forgot to mention I left the no steal tech flag intentionally. With stealing tech Spartans are too powerful

[waab]

About sea bases I couldn't agree more, they are totally uesless.

If you read the goals for SNAC the game is actuly perfect:

"Goal
*Eliminate effective early game 'rushes', i.e. any major attacs that occur within the first 40 turns to play"

The guy behind the mod wanted late wars I think.

Well I dont play as spartans as much so I can't say anything about land bases for them, (I actuly think I never have finished a game playing as spartans) but with Hive you can get a really nice production with size 10 bases (of course you need police troops rec commons and holo).

If you like war games mayby SNAC isn't the best choice because it is made to strengthen builders.

5 islands? how many bases do you have? But of course you might be playing on a bigger map than me. I don't like to have tons of bases because I find it boring so I often playing on tiny maps.

[Sandman25]

Yes, I've read the note about preventing rush, you are right about builder mod. Perhaps I didn't have to use tech stag but I wanted to wage long ground and sea wars.
Spartans are great with big cities - build Command Center, go to Power and you've got Elite troops (+ need a monolith if in SNAC).
Overall I like SNAC I think, it includes many useful changes like improved psi combat, more expensive and weaker planes, interesting terraforming, weak forests and boreholes etc.
I have about 13 bases on a huge map and sent some CP to 2 more isles.
I like playing Morgan on tiny maps. Momentum players are too powerful then (especially Hive).

[waab]

yes tiny maps favours momentum players but I am a builder any way. The only time I fight wars with the Hive (which I am playing as 99% of the time) is when somebody declears war against me. Which more or less everybody:
* police state => believe and Peace
* planned => Morgan and Gaians
* wealth => uni and spartans

[Sandman25]

I see. I guess it's hard to make alliances but you are likely to not need it with low Economy of Hive. At least I always refuse to make treaty with Morgan - I hate watching "Morgans - 0 (they get 1)" in commerce window of every city

[waab]

I concur I don't like it either...but life is a ***** and then you marry one. Or something like that anyway.

I do need alliances just because of my low econmomy so I can trade for some tech. So it happens that I go with green.

[Sandman25]

I would switch to green too, and not only for good relations with Gaians. As Spartans you have to be in Police State (police effect doubled) but it makes Efficiency -2 thus Green with its +2 Efficiency is very useful, especially if your cities are at max size already (I don't have Hab Complex yet due to tech stag and blind research).

Morgan gave me 600 EC for signing peace treaty so I have to nerve-stapple one of my bases during the same turn to remove the commerce benefit for him and in about 3 turns Morgans landed near my bases and when asked to withdraw the troops pronounced vendetta.

Any way, my small problem is solved. When Gaian's got Missile weapon my probe mindcontrolled one of their naval bases near my continent and luckily I got the tech. So now it's a full scale war, I built about 10 6-4-4, won naval war (it was hard but very interesting) and started capturing their naval bases, then seized a land base so it seems Gaians will die soon (I disabled Allied Victory so they will not surrender). Unfortunately they don't have any SPs so I will have to go for Hive or University.

[waab]

sounds like an intressting game at least....

[Sandman25]

Yes, it is an interesting game. Gaians died in 20 turns, I captured 4 sea bases from Morgan, 2 land bases from PK, but then armor 6 was discovered so I had to make truce with both, though still using Power for supporting units up to base size. It's not too cost-effective to use weapon 6 ships vs armor 6 infantry and weapon 6 rovers vs armor 6 ECM, so I have to build some more Elite infantry (especially defensive ones). Unfortunately the game becomes boring so I guess I will try a tiny map instead.

[waab]

could possible be a good idea...more wars then. But honestly if you like to fight big wars stay with the old nice SMAC instead.

[Sandman25]

Well, SNAC favors warmongering too - fanatics bonus is great (I tried tiny map as Uni and got eliminated in 50 turns, lost all my cities to Believers: my Elite scouts behind Perimeter Defense and Sensor (defense 4.5!) were decimated by weapon 2 Believers (attack 3.75 without morale bonus vs bases)) and as long as tech stealing is impossible you have to capture bases to acquire any tech.
I guess I will experiment with SNAC some more, this time without blind research

[waab]

good luck and have fun...