what changes would you like to have in SMAC?

[CEO Aaron]

I don't think crawlers are that unbalancing, except for their ability to make single turn Secret Projects. That ability I would eliminate entirely. Otherwise, I have never found the the crawler's reputation for broken-ness lives up to reality. Anywhere you terraform for widespread crawler exploitation would be far better put to use by simply planting more bases, if you're evaluating them for return on investment. That's why the fastest transcend game ever documented has NO crawlers, and lots of tiny hyperefficient bases.

There are some realism checks I'd like to impose on crawlers. Making them natively support-free is kind of egregious, and also I think there should be an efficiency mechanic to prevent far flung crawlers from contributing as effectively as nearby ones. I would also bump them up a tad in the tech tree, making them a bit later game in their application.

That all said, I like the fact that a deployed crawler needs to be defended, whereas a worker in a base is sitting pretty behind his base defenses. Teaching the AI to use crawlers effectively shouldn't really be that difficult.

[Zeiter]

Even more important than improving AI terraforming, I think, is improving AI military skills. Tactically, the AI needs to have a sharp eye for taking advantage of forest and rocky tiles, sensors, stacking with aircraft, dynamic defense (using an impact rover to "offensively" defend a chokepoint by actively attacking units as they come in, rather than just waiting for the attacking units to attack), etc. When I am invading an AI faction, I am able to play much more dynamically, stretch out my invading forces much too thinly, and expose myself to way too many risks than I should be able to if, for instance, I was playing against an experienced human player who would exploit these weaknesses mercilessly. But I can always count on the AI to be too tactically dumb to overlook the majority of these glaring opportunities.

Strategically, the AI needs to figure out how to create balanced, comprehensive invasion groups that can withstand conceivable human counter-attacks (including probes, rovers, and especially aircraft). And these invasion groups must be of a decent size in the first place, especially in the case of amphibious invasions--the AI needs to understand how to coordinate multiple transports to land units on the coast on the same turn. I'm sick of having to fend off pathetic 4-unit invasion groups, or a string of units coming overland through a chokepoint, mindlessly stumbling into what the AI should easily recognize as a meat-grinder. If I actually feared AI invasions, not just in a sense of having to keep the prospect in the back of my mind so that I remember to keep some token forces along the border, but to the extent that the AI's unpredictability and potential dynamism make me devote many more resources to precautionary measures, that by itself would make it much more difficult to out-build the AI.

Compared to these changes, terraforming changes should be easy. Just make the AI more willing to use forests (the original reason why the AI doesn't use forests as much as it does is because forests had different resource values when the AI terraforming was programmed), or make forests more costly (10 turns), as I have done in some of my mods (face it, forests ARE pretty sweet, and players should always face an actual choice about whether to use forests or farms or whatnot. "Forest and forget" is a linear strategy that should never exist in a good, balanced strategy game.)

I have also raised the costs of colony pods AND crawlers to 5 minrows, respectively, so as to encourage more of a focus on developing a smaller number of bases with more infrastructure and thereby simplifying and speeding the game, rather than making ICS and the race to Industrial Automation ALWAYS a winning strategy (once again, getting away from linear gameplay). I also brought hovertanks closer to the early-mid game, around the time the player gets aircraft, and I made aircraft more costly and provided better counter-measures against aircraft (increasing AAA defense, decreasing copter range, etc.) I also delayed the use of sea-bases until Adv. Ecological Engineering (so that the map doesn't get cluttered early on with a pathetic AI-sprawl of sea-bases whose only function is to provide easy launching pads for your invading aircraft), and I made aircraft carrier decks come earlier, so that cross-ocean invasions using airpower are less about skipping from sea-base to sea-base (which seems kinda lame to me) and more about using carrier groups, protected by naval armadas (making navies more important once again). Also, shortening the build-times on bunkers and airbases makes the tactical situations more interesting (now, teaching the AI to build bunkers along their border and--most importantly--make sure those bunkers are defended, that's the next challenge). I mean, forested, sensored bunkers are niiiiice: +125% defense vs. ALL (land AND air).

I've had very competitive, nail-biting games using these changes. I've even lost a few games with these changes. In this most recent game of mine, I'm not sure if I'll be able to pull ahead of Yang before it's too late. He is researching techs every 4 turns, his infrastructure is awesome (he's building hybrid forests and fusion labs), and he's even producing supply crawlers! (In addition to shard needlejets, shard infantry, etc.) Meanwhile I'm stuck with chaos weapons. Thankfully, I'm playing as the PlanetCult, and I managed to snag the xenoempathy dome, so I still have a viable native-life/fungus-invasion strategy. And I can still probe Yang because Lal was the one who managed to snag the Hunter Seeker Algorithm. And thankfully I'm good friends with Domai, who snagged the Planetary Datalinks (which has been quite fruitful for him in this relatively balanced game), and he has been willing to trade techs. Even so, I'm dreading taking on that Hive behemoth, especially because he can produce endless military units without paying support thanks to his SE choices (in addition to this upcoming completion of the Living Refinery...), and especially considering that Yang has the command nexus and the cloudbase academy. I am screwed.



By the way, check out the Peacekeepers. They don't have very many bases, but they are staying in the game just fine (in fact, they are the tech leader), partly due to the changes encouraging the development of existing bases. They have about 5 secret projects (including the HSA, EG, and the Neural Amplifier), and I imagine that if (when) a war with Yang breaks out again, the Peacekeepers will hold their own...for a while...(hopefully long enough to allow me to join in on Yang's other flank and start overrunning him).

The Drones, Gaians, and the Consciousness are also all holding in there quite well, each having a few secret projects, relative tech parity, and some well-developed bases. It's not often that I get to the mid-game and the game is still competitive with 6 out of 7 factions still thriving.

[Darrell01]

I would love to be able to build more than one thing in a base per turn. Imagine cranking out 3 1/1/1 clean police a turn for Yang or PS Spartans. Or building a recreation commons, paradise garden, hologram theatre, research hospital, children's creche, brood pit, and whatever else to immediately go into a golden age once you plunk that colony pod down. Or building 10 clean formers in one turn from a city. This would certainly alleviate the power of ICS.

[Straybow]

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
There are some realism checks I'd like to impose on crawlers. Making them natively support-free is kind of egregious, and also I think there should be an efficiency mechanic to prevent far flung crawlers from contributing as effectively as nearby ones.

See roadbuilding changes proposed above.

[spellbender]

hmmm....

I suppose I'm unique, or perhaps it's just my style of play. Not a single mention of any of my pet peeves about the game have appeared here.

I'd like to be able to turn off or override the "capture mind worms" function because of a high PLANET score. Just because I can, doesn't mean I want to. Very annoying, particularly when you end up supporting so many mind worm units that your base is spending all its minerals just to support them.

I'd like to have hard borders, first to establish the border sets its boundary. No more of this loss of territory, particularly a base's resource territory, without a declaration of vendetta.

Coastal cities that extend thier borders into the sea. The only border that exist presently, is the basic "you can't build your base closer than a 2 square separation from an existing base, which applies regardless of location or owner ship of the bases involved. If you want to blockade a base, just block it's sea access with any unit capable of a sustained position at sea, right next to the base. There will be no "remove your units from my territory" communique.

Better rules for what constitutes breaking a treaty. Raising a sea square that changes only your own territory or no one's territory should not break a treaty. Raising land that does change a sea territory should break a treaty. Planting a base that "steals" an opponent's base resourses should break a treaty.

On that last note, think of it this way. You settle a peice of land, build your house, and establish a couple of good sized vegetable gardens along one edge. You setup solar panels to power your house and discover a deposit of gold along the same edge. Then someone else comes along and builds their house next to that edge, disconnects your solar panels and hooks them to his house. Harvests your crops, and plants his own in your fields. Tells you the gold deposit isn't yours anymore, go away. Do you let him get away with that or did he just declare war?

I'd like to see them make allowances for arial formers. My gravship formers should be able to raise an island in the middle of the ocean. Raise a single square of land above the surface of the ocean or lower a single square of land below water level.

I'd like to see a counter to the super intelligent fungi. Personally I just don't see the Believers or the Morganites putting up with it without a solid fight to change it. The Believers would likely see it as an afront to 'God.' And the Morganites would find no profit in it. The University could go either way, since it is initially a great leap in knowledge. But ultimately leads to stagnation of knowledge since it is confined to the planet.

I'd like to be able to change the parameters of the unity pods. Quite frankly some of them are just not very intelligent. Earthquakes that only go up? No resource bonuses along the polar boundaries? Can't detect resource bonuses through fungi? Since they affect an area, no agri-bots or hydroponics-bots on rocky ground? Mining bots that can't find the rocky land where mines are best suited? Cartography pods that only occur at 2000 meters and above? Sonar pods but no sonar sensor becons? You can get credits, but never a complete what the nearest base is building during Perihilion?

I'd like to see the turn sequence corrected, assess Eco-damage before applying population growth. Though I suppose this is now a good thing, since they tied clean minerals to getting . Bass-ackwards if you ask me.

In the end I suppose it all comes down to your style of game play and your goals while playing the game. If all you want is a bang-bang shoot-em up, these 'quirks' probably won't bother you in the least.

Oh well. That's my rant.

[Hydro]

I like the idea of eco damage, but think the formula is brain dead. After all, you get to pollute more (higher clean minerals) with every transgression (<> of fungus). In my mind if you do this you should get fewer and not more clean minerals. I’ve always thought the developers forgot to add the negative sign to the algorithm, but that’s just me.

There is also the ecodamage reduction build-and-scrap exploit, where you build an eco-friendly facility (tree farm, centauri preserve) to get less eco damage and then scrap it – and Planet doesn’t notice. Eh? Even worse, you can scrap and build multiple times. Multiple eh? In my mind this rewards bad Planet behavior.

Spellbender – you may know this already: if you keep the MWs in fungus they are support free. Also, you can take the MWs and ‘release them into the wild’ – say, by an enemy’s base or terraformer – and they’ll do their thing as a wild MW and you won’t get tagged for the attack (hehe!). Lastly, if you’re far enough away when you capture the MWs they have no home base and are support free.

Hydro

[FullMetalJack]

Hydro, what you just highlighted is what I discovered recently in my first attempt at transcending in a game played with Morgan.

Yes, I agree that far from rewarding you with more clean minerals per pop it should in fact be the other way around. The build and scrap exploit just strikes me as 'wrong' too.

How do you release MWs into the wild? I'd like to try that.

[Straybow]

How do you release MWs into the wild? I'd like to try that.

Only in SMAX, not in SMAC.

[Hydro]

To release a MW into the wild you need to:
• Right click on the unit
• Select ‘Action’
• Select ‘Turn Over Unit Control’ (Cntrl+Shift+U)

If you are in unclaimed territory then you’ll have to confirm returning the MW into the wild. If it is in a faction’s territory then you’ll have to option of turning it over to that faction or returning it to the wild.

Hydro

[FullMetalJack]

Thanks Hydro!

Works great on plain SMAC. Never tried SMAX yet.

[Marid Audran]

Apropos to the OP's question, What changes would you like to have in SMAC?

I have my own personal answer. Check the Creation Forum.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=166661

[Alinestra Covelia]

* Ability to have more than seven factions on Planet in a game.

* Ability to have factions selectively ignore Atrocities generally. (Yang and Zakharov struck me as fitting this bill nicely.)

* Maybe make the voting for Planetary Council more flexible. Perhaps instead of making it a 1-vote-per-pop-unit system, make it also depend on happiness. So some people will vote for you and others will not. (Stops Yang from just booming and then swamping the PC votes.)

* A Civ3-style unhappiness-with-conquest situation. THis would make it very difficult to steamroller an enemy, because a conquered base's citizens stay as their original nationality and will become automatically unhappy if you declare war. Past a certain point, you're just adding to your own problems when you conquer enemy cities.

[CEO Aaron]

* A Civ3-style unhappiness-with-conquest situation. THis would make it very difficult to steamroller an enemy, because a conquered base's citizens stay as their original nationality and will become automatically unhappy if you declare war. Past a certain point, you're just adding to your own problems when you conquer enemy cities.

Ugh. I hated that mechanic. It might be realistic, but it's so aggravating as to be joy-killing in what is, at the end of the day, a guns and butter game. Pretty much turns any kind of momentum style play compeletely fruitless.

Military will be plenty hard to maintain when the AI stops acting like a doofus, anyway.

[Xian]

As a builder, I completely and totally co-sign and agree with everything Spellbinder wrote. Excellent points.

The PC needs to be dramatically expanded. More options, more rules to vote on etc.

[Mr. President]

Originally posted by CEO Aaron


Ugh. I hated that mechanic. It might be realistic, but it's so aggravating as to be joy-killing in what is, at the end of the day, a guns and butter game.

That would be the "butter" half of "guns and butter."

Besides, war should be difficult (maybe not quite as difficult as in Civ4). And if factions could selectively ignore atrocities, you would have more leeway to deal with the malcontents.

The PC needs to be dramatically expanded. More options, more rules to vote on etc.

This is also correct.