Missing Research Options

[Kadrian]

Originally posted by Verrucosus
Did you by any chance stumble about something definitive for calculating blind research odds?

Not yet, but if I do I'll mark it and send you the URL. I'm curious to know how people learned of these forumas in the first place. The alpha.txt files has a lot of rules in it but I don't think they contain any formulas for calculation.

Speaking of which, I haven't tried it myself, but near the top of the alpha.txt file under #RULES is this one:

100, ; Technology discovery rate as a percentage of standard.

I've seen some complaints about slow tech discovery when playing really huge maps. I wonder if lowering that when playing on really huge maps would solve the problem.

Kadrian

[Verrucosus]

I'm not a great modder, but that is a setting that I have fiddled with and it works like a charm. However, if I understand the description correctly, you should raise the value to increase the research rate. (I've seen people lowering this to 50 and using the "tech stagnation" option on top of that to play a really slow game where you can play around for decades with the same weapons before they become obsolete. This is meant to enhance the tactical aspect of the game. I haven't tried it myself.)

Verrucosus

[Petek]

Fitz's post in this thread explains how blind research works and how to manipulate it.

Petek

[Verrucosus]

Originally posted by Fitz
Each tech has a value in each of the four categories. The AI chooses the next discovery from the highest total values of those you have indicated. If you want to research a specific tech, follow this painful process:

Print out the alphax.txt portion that relates to techs. This contains the four values that each tech has in the four categories.

Find every tech you can possibly research from your current techs.

Find the tech you want. Now, try to find a value of the four values, in any combination, that the next tech you want has the highest combination.

A brief example:

Tech Build Conquer Explore Discover
Tree Farms 3 0 3 1
Doctrine: AP 0 3 4 1
Silksteel alloys 4 3 0 1

Now, to get D: AP, you specify Explore.
To get Silksteel, you specify Build.
To get Tree Farms, you specify Build & Explore.

Sometimes you cannot find a combination that places the tech you want (out of those available) as the highest value. You just have to settle for another, and hope the next round will give you a high combination for the tech you want.

I once figured this for every tech I wanted through Tree Farms on Blind. Unfortuanely, every time I play a trade or pod gives me a tech I wasn't expecting and throws the plan off.

All in all, not really worth it unless you are an extreme micromanager, and you might as well play non-blind.

I did, however, discover WHY it is so hard to get Tree Farms and Hab Domes. The values for some of the techs on the way is NEVER the highest in most combinations until other branches are much further past. Several level 2 & 3 techs on the Tree Farm branch are very hard to get before D:AP , and some of the level 8/9 on the Hab path usually will not come until other branches are at level 12.

Thank you for this gem, Petek! A thread called "Habitation Domes" is not necessarily where I would have looked for this. I will have to study this with greater care, but at first sight it does not correspond with my experience. Mind/Machine Interface has a higher conquer value [4] than most of techs I get while waiting for it. I suppose that Fitz's comment about an unexpected tech throwing his plans off only refers to the fact that a new tech can open up new choices whose values have to be compared to the one you want next. If it means more than that, it could be the key to my problem.

Verrucosus

[Petek]

Originally posted by Verrucosus


Thank you for this gem, Petek! A thread called "Habitation Domes" is not necessarily where I would have looked for this.
Verrucosus

Actually not too hard to find: It's listed in Minute Mirage's index to the archives, under Blind research, selecting techs.

Petek

[Verrucosus]

Ahem ... complete blindness or lack of concentration on my part are the only explanations that I can think of. I positively remember looking for something like this just a few months ago. My gratitude, of course, is unaffected by the realisation that you did not have to use magic to bring up the thread.

Verrucosus

[vyeh]

Children's Creche & Morale

Originally posted by Kadrian


That's some excellent information, vyeh. Got any more formulas us newbies (or even old pros) should know about?

Petek has already brought up ecodamage.

The effect of the children's creche on morale is complex and because it is backwards to what the manual says, you should know about it. Otherwise, it'll drive you more crazy than the problem in the opening post.

It is included in Maniac's columns on morale:

http://apolyton.net/misc/column/225_morale-1.shtml

http://apolyton.net/misc/column/225_morale-2.shtml

Originally posted by Maniac

9) Children's Creches

A Children’s Creche (CC) has a double effect on morale. On the one side it gives a morale bonus to units, built in a base with a CC, of a faction running a negative SE Morale. This bonus counts on every location. On the other side a Children’s Creche gives a battle bonus to units on the base square of a base with a CC. This is (supposed to be) represented in the form of (+)’s. Unfortunately the (+)’s are in some cases a bad indication of the actual battle modifiers given.

A summary of the effects of the CC are as follows:

For any unit built in a base with Children’s Creche, no matter their location:
0 SE Morale or higher: no difference.
-3 to -1 SE Morale: +1 morale level
-4 SE Morale: +2 morale levels

For units on a base square, the base having a Children’s Creche:

When the unit is defending: 0 SE Morale or higher: +12.5% (+) battle bonus
-1 & -2 SE Morale or higher: +25% (++) battle bonus
-3 SE Morale: +37.5% (+++) battle bonus
-4 SE Morale: +50% (++++) battle bonus
The total defence bonus (the sum of the morale level bonus and the (+) boni) is capped off at +50%.

When the unit is attacking:

+4 SE Morale: -37% battle penalty
+3 SE Morale: -25% battle penalty
+2 SE Morale: -12.5% battle penalty
+1 SE Morale: no difference
0 SE Morale: +12.5% battle bonus
-1 SE Morale: +25% battle bonus
-2 SE Morale: +25% battle bonus
-3 SE Morale: +37.5% battle bonus
-4 SE Morale: +50% battle bonus
If one would want to find some system in this, the following could work:

For positive SE Morale: base morale level + 12.5% (the intended CC effect according to the datalinks) – a certain # of +12.5% boni equal to the #of SE Morale (Not intended [As Far As I Know (AFAIK))
For negative SE Morale -1 and -2 both give the same bonus. So a formula could be like this: Battle modifier: base morale level + 12.5% + a # of +12.5% boni equal to the morale levels you lose because of negative SE Morale.

For attacks there is no limit at all for the battle bonus.
Don’t take the (+)’s behind your unit morale as an indication of the battle modifier it will receive. It is a good indication for when your unit is defending, but, when you have positive SE Morale, the actual battle effect is totally different.

As you can see, [developer] Firaxis [Games] seriously ****ed up this base facility. Because of it, as long as you have Creches it is often better to have a negative SE Morale than a positive or neutral SE Morale. It makes running Wealth not a problem at all. Indeed, even recommendable when you’re fighting a defensive war.

This can lead to weird situations. To give an example, you could build a unit while running +4 SE Morale in a base with a Crèche, Command Center and Bioenhancement Center. This unit is elite. When defending in a base, it has a +50% battle bonus (capped off). But when it attacks from the base square, it only has a +12.5% battle bonus, because of the -37.5% battle penalty Firaxis (I presume) as a mistake or lack of playtesting added to the CC effects.

Now imagine you switch to -4 SE Morale. The unit is still veteran. After all, the -3 morale levels of -4 SE Morale is largely compensated by the +2 morale levels from the Children’s Creche. Added to that comes four (+)’s when being in a CC base square. So when fighting it will have a defence bonus of +50% (same as eight morale levels higher) and an attack bonus of +75%, which is 67.5% higher than the unit fighting under +4 SE Morale.

As a conclusion, these are some obvious tips for factions with positive SE Morale to counter chreches:

1) Avoid attacking from inside bases. It would actually be in your advantage to move one tile out of a base, attack, and then move back into the base if possible.
2) Never let units end their turn next to an enemy base with a Children's Creche.
3) Perhaps if one can spare the resources, sending some probes along to destroy Creches in bases one plans to attack could be a good solution.

If you think about this, it makes a children's creche similar to a punishment sphere; children's creches come with penalties. Nothing in the manual or Gamespot guide suggest this. Imagine when you're running +4 SE morale and your elite unit attacks out of the base square a veteran unit and loses!

There goes the mouse again.

[Kadrian]

Re: Children's Creche & Morale

Originally posted by vyeh

There goes the mouse again.

I'd say this calls for a keyboard at least.

I did stumble across something else that apparently differers from the manual or what the game says. The different types of armor are rated according to whether they are better at resisting projectiles or energy. This apparently means nothing as it was never implemented in the game.

Kadrian

[Verrucosus]

They played around with that idea for a while and then abandoned it because it made the game too complex. (Interestingly, Civ4 made a complete u-turn, by discarding even the distinction between attack and defence strengths.) I think if you look around in the txt-files, you can still find remnants of the weapon-type distinction.

As far as its effect on gameplay is concerned, I believe the most important change that did not make it into the manual (or the computer players' terraforming strategy I'm afraid) is the decision to give an energy output to forests. It's fascinating how such a small adjustment to a single statistic can change the whole game.

Fortunately, there are not that many instances where the manual is just glaringly wrong. It's just not the exhausting exposition of the game mechanics that you might expect from a 200-something-page book. Even after almost eight years of SMAC studies, I am still not certain whether the world is ready for something like "Professor Petek's Annotated Manual to Alpha Centauri", 1st edition, 623 pages, Berkeley University Press, Hardcover $60, Paperback $19,95".

Verrucosus

[Kadrian]

$19.95 for the softcover? Sounds like a bargain! Let me know when it's on Amazon!

Sounds like Petek has his work cut out.

Kadrian

[vyeh]

Originally posted by Verrucosus
Even after almost eight years of SMAC studies, I am still not certain whether the world is ready for something like "Professor Petek's Annotated Manual to Alpha Centauri", 1st edition, 623 pages, Berkeley University Press, Hardcover $60, Paperback $19,95".

Verrucosus

I believe Vel's guide is still available at Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/SMAX-Guide-Christopher-D-Hartpence/dp/1588984907/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1198013736&sr=1-1

There is a thread in the AC Stories subforum about the guide

http://www.apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=28017

Although there are earlier versions of the guide online, I would recommend Vel's guide at 14.99.

How many pages of Professor Petek's manual would be devoted to the tricks of getting SMAC and SMAX to work on Vista?

If there wasn't an issue of who owns the game, it would be nice if SMAC/X were reissued (I am NOT talking about SMAC II) to accomodate Vista, even if all the bugs were left and the graphics were not updated.

I don't know how much programming time would have to go into adapting SMAC/X to a new system, but if the resulting package could be sold profitably at $20, I'm sure there would be a lot of new players.

[Verrucosus]

Originally posted by vyeh
How many pages of Professor Petek's manual would be devoted to the tricks of getting SMAC and SMAX to work on Vista?

None. However, the line "Installation, troubleshooting and customer support are all covered in the Install Guide." in Chapter 1 would be accompanied by a footnote "See also Professor Petek's Annotated Install Guide to Alpha Centauri, 68 pages, available from Berkeley University Press for 9,95 € with a 10 % discount upon proof of regular attendance of Professor PeteK's lectures."

Vel's Guide is still sitting prominently on my bookshelf and I have fond memories of the funny look that nice lady in my local bookshop gave me when I told her that I wanted to order the SMAX Guide from "Great Unpublished". Although it is very friendly to its readers and explains the game mechanisms on which the recommended strategies rest, its focus is the strategies themselves and it does not attempt to give a comprehensive description of the game mechanics. I could imagine an Amazon package offer "Get both Velociryx's Strategy Guide and Professor Petek's Annotated Manual for just ..."

Verrucosus

[Petek]

LOL. Problem is, all the manuals and guides would show up on eBay for $120 each!

[Googlie]

hmmm:

"How many pages of Professor Petek's manual would be devoted to the tricks of getting SMAC and SMAX to work on Vista?"

I upgraded from XP to Vista on my laptop a year ago, and have no problem running SMAC or SMAX

A couple of weeks ago I bought a new desktop, again with Vista Home premium, and can run both with no problem. (in fact, the interceptor scramble works like a charm with Vista!!!)

What problems are others experiencing with Vista??

(Maybe I should add that I am running the noCD crack on both machines, in case that makes a difference)

G.

[Mead]

Originally posted by Googlie
hmmm:



I upgraded from XP to Vista on my laptop a year ago, and have no problem running SMAC or SMAX

A couple of weeks ago I bought a new desktop, again with Vista Home premium, and can run both with no problem. (in fact, the interceptor scramble works like a charm with Vista!!!)

What problems are others experiencing with Vista??

(Maybe I should add that I am running the noCD crack on both machines, in case that makes a difference)

G.

Googlie

What's C4DG Team Alpha Centurieans?

PS

I have Vista on a new machine.

Since I retired my oldest machine, I've been stuck with the original SMAC on my 2nd oldest laptop. The most recent (Vista) machine I bought can't play either SMAC or SMAX.


Mead