User Created Maps

[Russia4Life]

I did take a look at the scenario in the scenario editor. If you had maritime control center, a cruiser would have 8 movement points. To travel 1024 squares, it would take the cruiser 128 turns. Since this requires a change to the Worldbuilder section in alphax.txt and is not a custom map, I assume that there would be a major slowdown to the research rate because of the huge size of the map.

How long would it take to win by transcendence?

A very long time is my guess. I am not sure what the maximum amount of cities this game allows is but because of the size you could conceivably mass produce cities without worry of enemies or drones from bureaucracy and get your research rate higher that way.

You can improve starting locations on very large maps by starting a game, saving the map via the scenario editor, then starting a new game using the LOAD MAP FILE option.

These poor (or non-existent) starts occur in SMAX, but apparently not in SMAC. I speculate that the developers had to change the "starting location algorithm" for SMAX because three of the new factions don't land until MY 2105, or so. They had to somehow reserve reasonable starts for the latecomers, especially on tiny maps. However, the supposed change might have had unintended consequences for very large maps. For some reason, starting the game from a loaded map file improves the starting locations.

Petek

I will have to give that a try if I come across a generated map I think looks good.
Makes me wish I could place start locations like in civ2. Oh well I won't give up yet, I am determined to make a multicontinental 256x256 generator, that will work with every custom setting, without the need of the scenario editor.

If anyone is interested I have the file for making an archipelago, it was quite easy really. Every faction will always have a start location no mater the settings, it may not always be a big island but everyone will have one. Most of the ocean is shelf squares so sea bases should be able to do very well. I haven't played any games on maps generated by it yet, I have only started games to make sure all factions received a starting location. Lastly, I have not used it to generate any maps for sizes smaller than 256,256 so I have no idea what the effect would be if used on one of the smaller planet settings.

[vyeh]

512 is the maximum number of bases, Question 42.

[gwillybj]

I assume that there would be a major slowdown to the research rate because of the huge size of the map.
How long would it take to win by transcendence?

Quite a while in my little corner of the SMACX world. I play on these huge maps with TechStag on and the global "technology discovery rate" reduced to 50% in alphax.txt
I had to set the mission ending year to 4100 (2000 years) because I was regularly running out of time with only 1000 years.

Is the Technology Discovery Rate calculation provided on page 23 of the Prima guide reliable? Or is there a better one easily obtainable?

[Petek]

I downloaded and started Russia4Life's scenario on the 1024x2048 (!) map. Nice looking map. I changed some of the scenario's parameters. First, I gave all the factions their usual starting techs, also their usual societal effects (e.g., +1 energy and -1 support for Morgan, and so on). I changed research to directed (that's just a personal preference). I also gave each faction a free former, just to help everyone get started. I also forced each faction to build a base on turn 1 (otherwise they tend to let their CPs wander around, as Russia4Life already noted).

I altered my Alphax.txt to change the tech rate to 300. That makes Morgan's first tech discovery to take place after around 80 turns, instead of 300+ turns. Finally, I extended the endind date to something like 3500.

I'll see if I can actually finish a game, although it might take several months.

Petek

EDIT: And I gave Roze a Probe Team.

[Russia4Life]

There is something else I will have to keep that in mind, I keep learning new things each day. I figured that their starting social bonuses and penalties would be defaulted to them just by being in the game. I have never made an actual scenario on SMAC(X) before only maps to play single player with. You could probably change your faction and the AI's too if you wanted to with the scenario editor. It may take a while to complete each action though. It took me about 5-7 seconds to place each unit on that map. I didn't use those factions for any particular reason, I just set all the factions to random when I generated that map and added the units for the factions that the game put in.

Let me know how it goes, I haven't been playing games lately been spending time making the map in post #1 and now tinkering with the world builder properties.

On an off topic note...
Anyone know if the single player map contest described in the1st sticky thread on AC Creation is still going on? I haven't got a reply from anyone, and not sure if I want to spend time making a map for a non existent contest.

[Russia4Life]

Multiplayer Map

While fiddling with the world builder settings further, (and getting frustrated and not achieving the results I wanted) I decided to take a break and make a map. I am not sure what the demand is for an Online Multiplayer map, but I made one anyways.

It is a 4 player flat map, with well balanced starting areas. Each containing a narrow choke point leading to a resource heavy central area for players to fight for control of. All land and sea traffic must go through this area so controlling it not only allows you access to this resource laden area but also allows you to contain the other players.

The starting areas all have access to a Pholus Ridge type land mark and a freshwater lake. These Freshwater lakes can be connected to the rest of the water on the map via a city being placed in the appropriate spot. There are 4 rivers on each starting landmass. There are also a few hills and mountains throughout the area allowing for almost all of the terrain to be moist or rainy, one of which is a mountain range which also allows a defensible position just before the players choke, should control of the choke point be lost.

There is water on both sides of a thin strip of land preventing a direct sea route to other players starting locations, if determined though a city could be build on that land to allow the passage of ships. Doing so will take some effort though because the whole strip is covered by rocky terrain and fungus.

The center area contains a volcano, one side covered with a dense jungle and the other is known for it's rich uranium deposits. The water directly surrounding this central area is known for its geothermal energy.

[Russia4Life]

Well I decided to take into serious consideration the info that Petek told me about SMAC placing start locations better than SMACX. I found out not only is this true, but look at this start location The Spartans got on a random map spawn. I could have restarted 50 times on SMACX and not gotten anywhere near this kind of result. (see attached image)


I feel pretty good about how the world builder generates maps for me now.

On 30-50% water I usually get a couple of large land masses connected by a smaller strip of land, sometimes getting separate continents but that happens rarely. The one thing that I kept finding irritating though is the amount of inland water that is generated. I was unable to fix this without damaging the creation of 50-70% ocean maps though.

With the 50-70% setting I get what my desired effect was 2 to 3 large continents with minimal islands. The settings of erosion do not effect the amount of land or the way that the land is generated too much only effecting the elevation. You can also see on the attached image if you look at the minimap what a typical generation of 50-70% ocean and weak erosion will look like. I like this setting and 50-70% and medium erosion the most for maps.

70-90% is what it is, it is alot of water. Not much else to describe about it.

Given my new found liking to the random generation of maps on vanilla SMAC, I will attach both an edited copy of alphax.txt and alpha.txt as not to leave anyone out.
Next thing I will probably aim for is A single large continent, Pangaea style.

[Illuminatus]

Hmmm, I am being tempted to actually try this megamap

[Russia4Life]

Made a map for that contest thingy, but since that thread looks dead I will just post it here for anyone who is interested.

Map Name: The Island
Size: 40x80 Round
Ocean: Set it to 50-70% but that was just for the purpose of generating a blank map. in actuality the map is closer to 15- 20% ocean
Erosion: average
Native Life: Abundant
Cloud Coverage: Dense

Description:
I built all the terrain of the map from a blank map, auto generated fungus rockiness and pods/resources. There is an assortment of landmarks not only the in game ones but stuff I added in for flavor. There is a large mountain range in the west. Moist plains to the east of the mountains. Dessert to the north of the plains. A large plateau to the east of the the the plains with a small mountainous region northeast of that. There are 9 rivers varying in size, some are rather short wile the larger ones span close to a third of the island.

[Petek]

I downloaded and started Russia4Life's scenario on the 1024x2048 (!) map. Nice looking map. I changed some of the scenario's parameters. First, I gave all the factions their usual starting techs, also their usual societal effects (e.g., +1 energy and -1 support for Morgan, and so on). I changed research to directed (that's just a personal preference). I also gave each faction a free former, just to help everyone get started. I also forced each faction to build a base on turn 1 (otherwise they tend to let their CPs wander around, as Russia4Life already noted).

I altered my Alphax.txt to change the tech rate to 300. That makes Morgan's first tech discovery to take place after around 80 turns, instead of 300+ turns. Finally, I extended the endind date to something like 3500.

I'll see if I can actually finish a game, although it might take several months.

Petek

EDIT: And I gave Roze a Probe Team.

Status report on game played on the 1024x2048 map:

Faction: Morganites
MY: 2186
Research status -- Started with: Ind Base; Researched: Cent Ecol, Planetary Nets, Ind Econ; Found in a pod: Info Nets; Currently researching: Ind Auto (will be discovered in 10 turns)
Research rate: Breakthroughs every 22 turns.
Number of Bases: 35 (Note: At zero efficiency, the bureaucracy limit is 302 bases!)
SE choices: Free Market
Running Econ: 10%, Psych: 30%, Labs: 60%
SP status: Built ME and VW. Deidre built WP and HGP.
No commlinks yet.
Lag has been present throughout the game, but is increasing. Currently, after ending a turn, it takes 10 minutes to regain control.

Who's who

Tech: Foreman Domai
Mil: Lady Deidre
Pop: CEO Petek
Wealth: Lady Deidre
Territory: CEO Petek
Overall: CEO Petek

(I speculate that Domai must have popped several level one techs from pods.)

Petek

[Russia4Life]

Status report on game played on the 1024x2048 map:

Lag has been present throughout the game, but is increasing. Currently, after ending a turn, it takes 10 minutes to regain control.

Ouch 10 minutes between turns is harsh, and thats only on turn 86 I shudder to think what would happen in 200 turns when the AI's all have 200 units and 50+ cities.

I would also expect The Empath Guild to be built before you find another player. Unless you get a comlink from a pod.

I have only gone 15 turns into that game, there is only a minute and a half to two minute wait between turns at this point. I always get sidetracked, making another map or playing a different game, and now I have started playing Darsnan's Scenario.

[Darsnan]

I have come to the conclusion that his idea is garbage, there are too many mountains and hills. When you start a random map the game only places 3 or 4 players. even using his file on a smaller map that happened in 4 out of 5 random games I started, and on the fifth I started on a 1 square island. It may be viable to create a game in scenario mode but not for a regular game.

Sorry to hear you haven't had good succes with smacksim's worldbuilder. I spliced it into my alphax.txt a while ago, and have not had the problems you described above.

One edit I made to smacksim's worldbuilder (which pobably effects your last issue - i.e.one square islands) is that I increased the island count significantly. This then led to a lot more multi-tlie islands, as well as less-blocky continents.

D

[Russia4Life]

Sorry to hear you haven't had good succes with smacksim's worldbuilder. I spliced it into my alphax.txt a while ago, and have not had the problems you described above.

One edit I made to smacksim's worldbuilder (which pobably effects your last issue - i.e.one square islands) is that I increased the island count significantly. This then led to a lot more multi-tlie islands, as well as less-blocky continents.

D

After what petek said I tried that with SMAC instead of SMAX and it worked. It was the overly horrible SMACX random map start locations causing it. I thought about editing that post after discovering that, but that post was already refferanced by another post so I just let it be.

[Petek]

Status report on game played on the 1024x2048 map:

Faction: Morganites
MY: 2207
Research status -- In addition to the techs mentioned in the last report, I researched Ind Aut and paid Miriam 100ECs for Soc Psych
Currently researching: Biogenetics (will be discovered in 10 years)
Research rate: Breakthroughs every 22 turns.
Number of Bases: 51 (Note: I have 23 active CPs, plus another 21 in production)
SE choices: Free Market, Wealth
Running Econ: 10%, Psych: 30%, Labs: 60%
ECs: 327
SP status: No SPs built since last report. I'm currently building the PTS.
Acquired Miriam's commlink via a pod.
MY 2203 -- Miriam declares vendetta after I refuse to pay 200ECs in tribute

Who's who:

Tech: Foreman Domai
Mil: Lady Deidre
Pop: CEO Petek
Wealth: Captain Svensgaard
Territory: CEO Petek
Overall: Sister Miriam

Lag is still approx. 10 minutes between turns. Also, popping either a river or earthquake from a pod results in several minutes delay.

[Russia4Life]

Status report on game played on the 1024x2048 map:

Faction: Morganites
MY: 2207
Research status -- In addition to the techs mentioned in the last report, I researched Ind Aut and paid Miriam 100ECs for Soc Psych
Currently researching: Biogenetics (will be discovered in 10 years)
Research rate: Breakthroughs every 22 turns.
Number of Bases: 51 (Note: I have 23 active CPs, plus another 21 in production)
SE choices: Free Market, Wealth
Running Econ: 10%, Psych: 30%, Labs: 60%
ECs: 327
SP status: No SPs built since last report. I'm currently building the PTS.
Acquired Miriam's commlink via a pod.
MY 2203 -- Miriam declares vendetta after I refuse to pay 200ECs in tribute

Who's who:

Tech: Foreman Domai
Mil: Lady Deidre
Pop: CEO Petek
Wealth: Captain Svensgaard
Territory: CEO Petek
Overall: Sister Miriam

Lag is still approx. 10 minutes between turns. Also, popping either a river or earthquake from a pod results in several minutes delay.

Amazes me that Domai could maintain a tech lead for so long, he's showing you what -2 research is all about.

Anyone like any specific kinds of maps I feel like making another but not sure what people like to play.