SMAniaC

[Mart]

Scenario to try. If you place it in your Scenarios folder and play it as "play scenario" you should automatically use the new alphax.txt. No other change to the game is needed.

Ai will probably perform very stupid here, just see the techs. Although expect some factions get to powerful technologies quite early.

I can also do a challenge game with this scenario mod.

[Lazerus]

damn just how cheap do the crawlers want to be

[Maniac]

Hurray! The alpha version of my mod is ready!

Anyone interested in playtesting it with me?

I've included all my files of the mod in the attached zip file. At the moment, I haven't made any graphic changes yet, so the only thing that needs to be done is throw the alphax.txt and faction files in the main SMAC directory.

(Well one graphic file is included: the spartans.pcx is just a minor modification turning the Spartan faction colour from black to dark grey. Useful for PBEMs in which Sparta has black text colour instead of white.)

Myself I've started using a seperate SMAC directory for this mod, so I don't have to switch files with the standard version.

[#endgame]

*cough* ModMan *cough*

[Mart]

What kind of playtesting you have in mind? A multiplayer?

[Maniac]

Nah, just single player for now to give comments. Do you think it's balanced? What tech strategy do you follow? Which SE choices do you make? etcetera..

[Maniac]

Just in case anyone's interested, an updated alphax.txt correcting some mistakes I encountered.

[PJayTycy]

what did you change?

[Maniac]

IIRC:

• Interplanetary Spaceflight had The Exowomb incorrectly as a prerequisite. Changed to Ecological Geneering.
• Corrected the prerequisite of the missle chassis to what it was meant to be.
• Scrapped the Nuclear and Doomsday Missile basic units. Having those in the #UNITS caused their weapons to be already prototyped, which I didn't want.

However yesterday I've already changed the alphax.txt again. I've added two technologies: 'Long Range Missiles' & 'N-Space Resonance'. I've reshuffled conventional missiles to 'Long Range Missiles' and the Flechette Defense System (and the ability to raise/lower terrain) to 'N-Space Resonance'. Also seriously reduced the cost and weapon strength of the conventional missiles to 4. It's an experiment to see if the AI will build those cheap missiles and use them effectively. Missiles probably have a higher chance of hurting a human player than masses of land troops charging to their death. (Unless of course you defend against missiles with flechette defense and AAA, which is available earlier in the tech tree compared to the standard game.)


Are you trying out the mod, PJayTycy?

[GeoModder]

Update?

And you have a lot of editing to do in the tech files and such.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by GeoModder
Update?

Update!

Besides the ones mentioned above:

• Interplanetary Spaceflight still had a wrong prerequisite.
• Orbital Spaceflight now has N-Space Resonance instead of Fusion Power as a prerequisite. Yet another choice to make! Should I go for Space Power or Fusion Power first?
• The Psi Twister is now available a bit earlier.
• The Psi Amplifier armour has now been scrapped to make room for Force Field (D4) armour available with N-Space Resonance.
• Nuclear missile is now available again as a basic units. The Cult used 20 of them on nearby Sparta and Hive in one test game. Perhaps their cost should be increased somewhat. The Doomsday Missile is still scrapped though, as I discovered they didn't have their planet buster capability as a basic unit type.
• The 'Explore' value of several green techs has been increased, to make them more attractive for the AIs to research.

[Maniac]

I also made changes to the Gaian and Cult faction files.

Some test games to see how the AIs perform learned me that no one except the Peacekeepers (whose focus I changed to Explore & Build) researched the 'green' side of the tech tree. Even not the Gaians and Cult.

To solve that, I changed the Gaian focus to Explore & Build as well. Now they do go after Environmental Economics, acquiring their free tree farm.

The problem with the Cult was that they primarily focused on the Conquer techs and conventional weapons. Therefore I changed their focus to 'Explore' only. Now they do research the techs that give further production boni to fungus!

I then tested a game with three AI Gaians and thee AI Cults to see how they would perform. The answer is "really well!"

Two Gaian factions started near the monsoon jungle along with me giving them some resonance grids (orbital power transmitters renamed - a common CMN method to improve AI performance), which of course partly explains their success. But still, a nice result I think. Here's a screenie from 2300:

[Maniac]

Err, pressed 'Submit reply' by accident. Here's the screenie:

[Maniac]

I was more surprised by the improved Cult performance though. At one point faction Planet Cult-2 was the most powerful faction. Which is even more surprising as I discovered only in MY 2250 I hadn't given them resonance grids like the Gaian factions. So they basically got to their current size without any help or boosts whatsoever! Here's a screenie from 2300:

[Maniac]

Here's the test game MY 2317. The Gaians are building the Voice of Planet.