Aldebaran 2: Smax

[binTravkin]

One other thing, we currently have more than 7 Aldebaran factions, do we want to trim it down?

I think yes.
Do you think any of them is not worthy being there?
(which one and why)

[Illuminatus]

I don't think you need to trim down faction number - leave them to the user to choose which ones to play.

[#endgame]

I like the idea of "SMAC Factions" "SMAX Factions", except as "Aldebaran Factions" "Aldebaran Super AI Factions"

I'd look for re-hashes of current factions but I am on holiday...

[binTravkin]

About trimming - if we let in more factions, we need to incorporate them in story.
IIRC in SMAC Aldebaran there was 1 faction who was not represented in the story..

About AI facs - they were made to make AIs stronger, but they're very unhandy..

There is another way to bost AIs without giving anything special to them:

By default in GAIAN.txt there stands:

Economics, Green, PLANET //positive
Economics, Free Market, nil //negative

which means Gaia will instate Green in 90% cases and go for SE which has positive PLANET (and avoid SE which has it negative) and FM will be disabled to her

If you alter it like

Politics, Democracy, INDUSTRY //positive
Economics, Free Market, nil //negative

Gaia instates very nice Demo/Planned/Wealth combo and goes for Eudaimonia when available (as she regards INDUSTRY highly)

If you alter it even more:

Politics, Democracy, INDUSTRY //positive
Economics, Free Market, POLICE //negative

You have Gaia which will NEVER have police state (which would be rather characteristic) and regard Cybernetic Future Society higher than Eudaimonia not because Cybernetic has +2 Planet, but because it has -3 police and it's a bigger penalty than +2 INDUSTRY of Eudaimonia is bonus..

So we canhave rather a Gaianistic Deirdre, but at the same time a very powerful entity.

I placed Gaia on Monsoon to test this and you know what, I barely managed to Planet Buster her before she had her planet busters in place!
Why?
She was booming away like hell.

Also - you can alter the "Discover", "Explore", "Conquer", "Build" choices to get more expansive Faction (pure Explore does it), and alter agresiveness to get reasonable diplomacy..

I wonder if anyone has done it before, but if not I will make a manual of this and post it here in downloadable form.

For this project - Im ready to do this task if you're ready to allow it to me!

[binTravkin]

In this post I will review the AI scripting and I want you all to give some opinion about them.
I think that the worst mistake I can make would be aligning some faction to a SE which is not characteristic.
So feel free to add comments/suggestions.

SE list:

Propaganda, Economics, Protocol, Production
Dogmatic,        None,
Intolerance,     Human1,  +SUPPORT, +MORALE, -RESEARCH, -POLICE
Paranoia,        Tacit3,   +PROBE, +POLICE, +SUPPORT, -INDUSTRY
Unity,           Arbor1,    +ECONOMY, ++EFFIC, -INDUSTRY, -SUPPORT
Barter,          None,
L. Faire,        Commerc,  +ECONOMY, ++EFFIC, -PLANET, --POLICE
State,           Tacit2,   +INDUSTRY, ++POLICE, +PROBE, --EFFIC
Utopian,         Transp,   ++EFFIC, +++RESEARCH, +GROWTH, +MORALE
Survival,        None,
Controlled,      Cyborg,   +INDUSTRY, +SUPPORT, +GROWTH, --RESEARCH
Extractive,      Extra,    ++ECONOMY, ---PLANET, ---POLICE, --SUPPORT
Green,           pArm3,    ++PLANET, +INDUSTRY, +POLICE, -EFFIC
Not Much,        None,
Military,        Command,  +SUPPORT, ++MORALE, +PROBE, -ECONOMY
Citizens,        Arbor2,   ++++GROWTH, -PLANET, -ECONOMY, -INDUSTRY
Macroeconomic,   MacroE,   +POLICE, +ECONOMY, +INDUSTRY, +EFFIC



Colonist:

Galactic Colonists, The Colonists, Colonists, M, 2, Shi Tarza, F,  0,  0, 0, 0, 0,
  ALIEN, 0, SOCIAL, -PLANET, SOCIAL, -POLICE, SOCIAL, ++EFFIC, SOCIAL, +INDUSTRY, UNIT, 1, TECH, Tacit1, TECHCOST, 80, IMMUNITY, EFFIC
 Propaganda, Unity, EFFIC
 Protocol, Green, nil

Such a setup would most likely make them go for:

Unity/L.Faire/Controlled/Macroeconomic

Questions could appear here, so explanation follows:

Unity, L.Faire and Macroeconomic - efficency
Controlled - in cases AI doesn't know where to go (has no prefs) it goes for INDUSTRY


My opinion:
[quote]
Propaganda, [b]Unity[/b], EFFIC
[/quote]

Why is Unity here?
The efficency pref anyways will make this AI go for Unity.
So we can free up this slot and fill in what really characterises this faction:

 Protocol, [b]Controlled[/b], EFFIC
 Protocol, Green, nil

Remember? Outlaws are fighting this SE setting!

So we have a nice AI which will almost always go for:
Unity/L.Faire/Controlled/Macroeconomic

BUT:

I really question whether Unity and Laissez Faire is right for such a dictatoristic character as Empress Railey!
I see her more like running:

Intolerance/State/Controlled/Military

Intolerance - she dislikes other factions
State and Controlled - quite relative SE + quite characteristic
Military - wasn't she that dirty ***** which was going to conquer entire planet??

For such Empress we will have a completely different setup:

Economics, State, SUPPORT
Propaganda, Paranoia, nil

Why Paranioa - paranoia has the same Support setting as Intolerance, so we must disable it to make Empress go for intolerance..
I think it makes more sense than disabling Green.

So please state your opinion:

1st setup:
 Protocol, Controlled, EFFIC
 Protocol, Green, nil

aka: Unity/L.Faire/Controlled/Macroeconomic

Which will in result give:

+7 EFFIC
+3 ECONOMY
+2 INDUSTRY
+1 GROWTH
-2 RESEARCH (which will make ~0 together with techcost, 80)
-2 PLANET
-3 POLICE (+1 drone for >1 unit away from territory)

or

2nd setup:
 Economics, State, SUPPORT
 Propaganda, Paranoia, nil

aka: Intolerance/State/Controlled/Military

Which will in result give:

+3 INDUSTRY
+3 SUPPORT (good one! each base support 4 units + 1 for each pop above 4!)
+3 MORALE
+2 PROBE
+1 GROWTH
-1 ECONOMY (not so bad IMO)
-3 RESEARCH (which will make ~ -1 together with techcost, 80)

AND

+2 EFFICENCY if "IMMUNITY, EFFIC" is changed to "IMPUNITY, State"



I think the 2nd setup is more characteristic and gives some good credit for AI (especially - support and industry)


Also - I've spotted that there are 9 parameters for the faction and I propose to remove "ALIEN, 0" it has NO sense whatsover - Colonists are still humanoids!

Also there are no direction for research and building..
SO it should look like:

Galactic Colonists, The Colonists, Colonists, M, 2, Shi Tarza, F,  [b]1[/b],  [b]1[/b], 0, 0, [b]1[/b],
  SOCIAL, -PLANET, SOCIAL, -POLICE, SOCIAL, ++EFFIC, SOCIAL, +INDUSTRY, UNIT, 1, TECH, Tacit1, TECHCOST, 80, [b]IMPUNITY, State[/b]

I also propose to change "techcost, 80" to "++RESEARCH" as noone actually sees techcost in the SE screen, but research is being displayed there..

[#endgame]

The idea behind making the galactics aliens was to make them require the tech "Sapiens Galacticus" for the lesser humans to be able to communicate with them.

[binTravkin]

The idea behind making the galactics aliens was to make them require the tech "Sapiens Galacticus" for the lesser humans to be able to communicate with them.

Yeah, but the downsides are:

1.They've got 9 parameters now (the last one will be ignored)
2.Almost noone would want to play them now (aliens are advantaged at the start and disadvantaged at late game)

IMO if these "Sapiens Galacticus" are so superior they SHOULD understand other humans for these reasons:

1.They're ascended form Homo Sapiens, so they have very similar thinking scheme
2.They're superior. It's like Homo Superior - it should understand many things that Homo Sapiens do not.
3.Communication does not require both sides to be equal. If one of the sides can understand the other's language, communication is possible


ALSO:
If Sapiens Galacticus is Alien, then the Outlaws should be too as they're related to Sapiens Galacticus..

IMO there are too much downsides in transofrming one faction which actually is humanoids into Aliens.

The issues are both story-related (entire story should change with that) and gameplay-related (many people dislike aliens + they're unbalanced).

In general I think it's nonsense.

There are other ways to make em less talkative and friendly.

[#endgame]

I agree, but I was posting what I presumed was SS's reasoning. If you can make them arrogant, then go for it. I did some looking into the alien flag and it seemed to do the following:

Set directed research on if they were the first player
Set unity survey on if they were the first player
Add a MKI battle ogre and extra colony pod on planetfall
Make them require Progenitor Psych to be able to talk with them, or they can discover Social Psych as an alternitive
Give them the free tech: Field Modulation
Make it impossible to trade with them, giving the energy grid instead
Make them a little more arrogant and (in theory) make it impossible to treaty with more than one of them at a time
Make them especially intolerant of the other aliens

[binTravkin]

Ok, then leave them aliens, but we must then redo the three techs related to them: Soc Psy, Prog Psy and Field Mod.

Also - what do we do about battle ogres?
Has this been discussed?

[#endgame]

Hm... I haven't heard anything about the ogres, except perhaps relating to some 'storyline'. I think we may be better off leaving them as humans. Do you think we should poll this in a separate thread?

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by binTravkin

Also - what do we do about battle ogres?
Has this been discussed?

Battle Ogres are Progenitor artifacts (as are the "Library Nodules"): either we include them in the storyline (meaning Aldebaran was once a Progenitor controlled Planet) or if we can find someone to give us new graphics then we could come up with a different storyline. Problem is none of us (as far as I know) are graphics gurus...


D

[binTravkin]

Hmm, can't they just be disabled by deleting their unit line?

And deleting them from alien flag?


But In general I think the best solution would be removing Alien, 0 from Colonist.txt file.

Also - what was your thoughts about my AI analysis in post above?

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by binTravkin
Hmm, can't they just be disabled by deleting their unit line?

You can only change the lines - you can't delete them as the Battle Ogres and artifacts are "poddable" items, and the game will "pod" whatever item holds that slot in the alphax.txt file. FYI.

Originally posted by binTravkin
But In general I think the best solution would be removing Alien, 0 from Colonist.txt file.

I agree. We can still make them "alien" enough without looking like a Prog.

Originally posted by binTravkin
Also - what was your thoughts about my AI analysis in post above?

I'll see about reviewing it this weekend.


D

[Mart]

Originally posted by Darsnan
Problem is none of us (as far as I know) are graphics gurus...


D

They do not have to be very pretty. Ogres are not going to date anyone or something...

[binTravkin]

They do not have to be very pretty. Ogres are not going to date anyone or something...

But they still should look qualitative.