SMAniaC

[Maniac]

I just need to compile some good base name lists for all factions, and then I can release SMAniaC v1.0

[Illuminatus]

Originally posted by Maniac
I just need to compile some good base name lists for all factions, and then I can release SMAniaC v1.0

If this is the problem you can release it now and point to my mod-in-works later.

[#endgame]

Once you release it, I'll make the ModMan files for it, so you don't have to maintain 2 SMAC installs to use it.

[Maniac]

I have uploaded the current state of the mod here. Warning: 2 MB, half of that some reshuffled mp3 files. I'll wait some two weeks with an official bells and whistles release.

[Kataphraktoi]

2 mg isnt bad...

Once you release it, I'll make the ModMan files for it, so you don't have to maintain 2 SMAC installs to use it.

i have 4 smax setups and 2 vanila smac.i just copy+paste the whole directory when i need a new mod install

[Illuminatus]

Originally posted by Cataphract887
2 mg isnt bad...



i have 4 smax setups and 2 vanila smac.i just copy+paste the whole directory when i need a new mod install

I have six SMAX setups, no SMAC ones.

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by Illuminatus


I have six SMAX setups, no SMAC ones.

Hmm, I recently recall someone reminding me to stay on topic....

Anyways, IIRC Mines were moved to IndAuto for this mod. Has anyone then seen an increas in the AI's building forests? If not, what about moving solar collectors to Ind Eco as well? Any thoughts/ experience with this?

D

[Maniac]

Mines were moved to Industrial Base (which matches with Industrial Economics in the standard game). As a consequence the AI does concentrate on roads, farms and to a lesser degree (but still more than in the usual game) forests first.

Solar collectors become available at Renewable Energy Sources (=Industrial Base in the standard game), meaning always earlier than mines become available. As a consequence the AI builds lots of farm/solar collector combinations instead of farm/mine combination. Not as good as building lots of forests, but still better than lots of farm/mines I think. I guess the AI would build more forests if solar collectors and mines were delayed even further, but that kinda reduce the fun and variety of terraforming for the human player.

[Mark123jansen]

Maniac, first of all, I'm loving this mod, very well balanced.

Second, I presume you've read the Nights Dawn Trilogy, with all those tech and facility names; Affinity Gene, Cloudscoop etc

Thirdly, for renaming the 'know-how' techs, have you thougt of calling them Re-applicating or Reintegrating. For example Military Re-application (Colonist must now re-apply the military knowledge brought from earth and adapt it to their new Chiron environment)

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Mark123jansen
Maniac, first of all, I'm loving this mod, very well balanced.

Glad you like it.

Second, I presume you've read the Nights Dawn Trilogy, with all those tech and facility names; Affinity Gene, Cloudscoop etc

Indeed. Affinity fits very well in a society bonding with Planet I find.

Thirdly, for renaming the 'know-how' techs, have you thougt of calling them Re-applicating or Reintegrating. For example Military Re-application (Colonist must now re-apply the military knowledge brought from earth and adapt it to their new Chiron environment)

Could work.
That would make Military Reapplication, Sea Power Reapplication and Air Power Reapplication IIRC.

Btw, what faction have you tried out (or already more than one)? Do you have a preference for some social engineering choices or tech paths?

[Mart]

Originally posted by Maniac
... Not as good as building lots of forests, but still better than lots of farm/mines I think. ...

In Aldebaran mod, Smacksim lowered cost of forests to 3 turns. He claimed, that AI was making more of them.

Another way would be increase the cost of farms and solar collectors, but that possibly would hinder AI here. But I never tried this.

[Mark123jansen]

Originally posted by Maniac
Btw, what faction have you tried out (or already more than one)? Do you have a preference for some social engineering choices or tech paths?

Im now doing and OCC with Morgan,I really like him now that he can have decent cities, and the AI does a lot better with him too.
I've tried ICS with the Gaians, who are also very fun to play in this mod.
I must say that with morgan the Private protect SE is very appealing, +2 econ without the massive downsides of FM is very nice, verging on unbalanced. I also like technocrat a lot.

But with the exception of Yang, im not sure which settings please which faction, for example, i was running technocrat, and still Zak was pissed at me.

Oh and btw, did you take out librarians completely? I spent my first game trying to find them in the tech tree, it wasnt till 2300 or so that i figured out that engineers gave +labs also

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Mark123jansen
I must say that with morgan the Private protect SE is very appealing, +2 econ without the massive downsides of FM is very nice, verging on unbalanced.

I'm worried about that SE choice as well. I don't really know what penalties I could give it though. -Police fits better with Democratic IMO, and -Planet is already with Anthropocentric, and I don't really say why private economies would necessarily be worse for Planet than planned economies.

for example, i was running technocrat, and still Zak was pissed at me.

For most faction their preferences are listed in the diplomatic faction profiles. Zak's the only exception. I set his preference to technocrat, but since technocrat is on the earlier standard Survical value spot, the games doesn't recognize it as a preference and Zak simply doesn't have one if I understand correctly. So normally there shouldn't be any SE choice that would piss off Zak.

Oh and btw, did you take out librarians completely? I spent my first game trying to find them in the tech tree, it wasnt till 2300 or so that i figured out that engineers gave +labs also

Engineer,         Engineers,           None,    MindMac, 1, 0, 2, 0000000
Doctor,           Doctors,             None,    Integ,   0, 2, 0, 0000000
Thinker,          Thinkers,            MindMac, DigSent, 1, 0, 4, 0000000
Eugene,           Eugenes,             HomoSup, WillPow, 3, 0, 2, 0000000
Empath,           Empathi,             Integ,   WillPow, 2, 2, 0, 0000000
Sentience,        Sentiences,          DigSent, Disable, 2, 1, 4, 0000000
Transcend,        Transcendi,          WillPow, Disable, 3, 2, 2, 0000000

These are the specialists. The tech tree is basically divided into an Explore branch, and a Discover/Conquer branch. I wanted each branch to have a late-game specialist, so there are Transcendi and Sentiences. This meant however that another specialist had to be removed to make room, so as you noticed now there's only the engineer (+1 eco, +2 labs) in the early game.

[Mark123jansen]

Thx for the explanations, one more question, What exactly is the benefit of subsistence (one of the basic SE choices) Because i was doing a network game with a friend of mine, and when i switched from subsistence to Private/Protect, I suddnely had drone riots all over the place! Put me decades hehind, because i had to buy rec commons in a base before it could grow (even a genorous 20% psych would not get rid of the drone) and i only had 3 bases at the time.

[Maniac]

Woops.
There's nothing changed with Subsistence. The private economies give -1 Talent though, which means an extra drone in each base (partly replacing the -5 Police, except that exploring doesn't form a problem). Unfortunately the Talent SE factor doesn't have an icon in the social engineering menu, so if you don't know the malus is there, it's easy to get in an unexpected situation as you did. Sorry for that. I changed the entire alphax.txt, so it would be too much work to document all the changes.

The Datalinks do show the correct bonuses and penalties for the SE choices though, as does the modSE.txt in the 'documentation' folder of the SMAniaC download.

Besides private economies (-1 Talent), democracies (+1 Talent) and empath elites (+2 talent) also affect talents and drones.