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SMACX AI Growth mod
Copyright 2018 by Brandon Van Every
Version 1.15, July 30, 2018
The design of this mod, and all the playtesting needed to improve it, have taken 3 PERSON MONTHS of full time work to produce. In some other universe where I made money, this could have been a quarter of a year's salary. Some people release complete, if trivial, commercial games in that kind of timeframe. Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is a decidedly non-trivial game, one whose complexities have kept me occupied for nearly 20 years. So it takes much longer to mod it, in any substantive way. I am at times amazed, when various game developers do "game jams" and claim to produce quality in a short amount of time. It has never happened with any mod I've worked on. Perhaps changing the rules of wargames, simply invites time to disappear.
This mod aspires to professionalism, to be substantially better than the original game. I hope people will try and enjoy it, as that validates the effort spent. Please let me know if you find any bugs or omissions.
INSTALLATION
- Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri with Alien Crossfire expansion is required.
- This mod is for the OFFICIAL game. Unofficial patches that change the alphax.txt file, like the Yitzi 3.5d patch, will not work!
- I suggest installing the OFFICIAL game in a custom directory using custom installation options, and then this mod.
- You can have many installations of SMAC on your computer. They're small and won't interfere with each other.
- This mod contains alphax.txt, the 14 faction *.txt files, and this readme_mod.txt
- Drop the files on top of your SMAC installation, overwriting the existing files.
DESIGN SUMMARY
- I've tried to make the AI play better. That's really important.
- The AI uses Foil Probe Teams now. Watch your sea bases!
- Factions are better rounded, and most don't have penalties. This helps the AI.
- Aliens are no longer overpowered. They are no better than normal factions.
- The world generator is tweaked to give the AI factions more land to grow in.
- Enormous 80x160 and Giant 128x256 maps are defined.
- Choosing 30%..50% land mass yields substantial continents, but still plenty of ocean for the Pirates.
- I test gameplay on an Enormous map with 30%..50% land mass. That's my benchmark for "correct experience".
- Techs, facilities, units, and abilities are completely reordered, for what I consider to be good pacing.
- Secret Projects come later in the game and cost at least 300 minerals.
- Overpowered Secret Projects come MUCH later.
- Social Engineering choices are gradualist and incremental, to facilitate mixing and matching.
- Future Society choices become available in late midgame and are not overpowered.
- Completing the entire tech tree is required to Transcend.
- Facilities, abilities, and units are assigned to Explore, Discover, Build, or Conquer according to what they actually do.
- "Explore" really means "colonization and growth" to the AI. It doesn't mean exploring.
- Planet Busters can hit anywhere on Planet.
- Armor has been strengthened to match weapons at the same tech level.
DESIGN DETAILS
[etc. Go to the homepage of my mod to download it, or read more about it. I'm happy to answer any questions here as well.]
Copyright 2018 by Brandon Van Every
Version 1.15, July 30, 2018
The design of this mod, and all the playtesting needed to improve it, have taken 3 PERSON MONTHS of full time work to produce. In some other universe where I made money, this could have been a quarter of a year's salary. Some people release complete, if trivial, commercial games in that kind of timeframe. Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is a decidedly non-trivial game, one whose complexities have kept me occupied for nearly 20 years. So it takes much longer to mod it, in any substantive way. I am at times amazed, when various game developers do "game jams" and claim to produce quality in a short amount of time. It has never happened with any mod I've worked on. Perhaps changing the rules of wargames, simply invites time to disappear.
This mod aspires to professionalism, to be substantially better than the original game. I hope people will try and enjoy it, as that validates the effort spent. Please let me know if you find any bugs or omissions.
INSTALLATION
- Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri with Alien Crossfire expansion is required.
- This mod is for the OFFICIAL game. Unofficial patches that change the alphax.txt file, like the Yitzi 3.5d patch, will not work!
- I suggest installing the OFFICIAL game in a custom directory using custom installation options, and then this mod.
- You can have many installations of SMAC on your computer. They're small and won't interfere with each other.
- This mod contains alphax.txt, the 14 faction *.txt files, and this readme_mod.txt
- Drop the files on top of your SMAC installation, overwriting the existing files.
DESIGN SUMMARY
- I've tried to make the AI play better. That's really important.
- The AI uses Foil Probe Teams now. Watch your sea bases!
- Factions are better rounded, and most don't have penalties. This helps the AI.
- Aliens are no longer overpowered. They are no better than normal factions.
- The world generator is tweaked to give the AI factions more land to grow in.
- Enormous 80x160 and Giant 128x256 maps are defined.
- Choosing 30%..50% land mass yields substantial continents, but still plenty of ocean for the Pirates.
- I test gameplay on an Enormous map with 30%..50% land mass. That's my benchmark for "correct experience".
- Techs, facilities, units, and abilities are completely reordered, for what I consider to be good pacing.
- Secret Projects come later in the game and cost at least 300 minerals.
- Overpowered Secret Projects come MUCH later.
- Social Engineering choices are gradualist and incremental, to facilitate mixing and matching.
- Future Society choices become available in late midgame and are not overpowered.
- Completing the entire tech tree is required to Transcend.
- Facilities, abilities, and units are assigned to Explore, Discover, Build, or Conquer according to what they actually do.
- "Explore" really means "colonization and growth" to the AI. It doesn't mean exploring.
- Planet Busters can hit anywhere on Planet.
- Armor has been strengthened to match weapons at the same tech level.
DESIGN DETAILS
[etc. Go to the homepage of my mod to download it, or read more about it. I'm happy to answer any questions here as well.]
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