4X The Unsurpassed Brian Reynolds' Alpha Centauri thread

[Average Manatee]

I use governor for everything except choosing production, at least until the late game where you want to run a lot of specialists. Not much you can really automate effectively. Half my time is spent managing formers and I don't think the AI can be relied on since its so important for your economic growth. Not sure if Thinker improves automation for you but even then I'd be wary of relying on it.

 

[Silva]

I use governor for everything except choosing production, at least until the late game where you want to run a lot of specialists. Not much you can really automate effectively. Half my time is spent managing formers and I don't think the AI can be relied on since its so important for your economic growth. Not sure if Thinker improves automation for you but even then I'd be wary of relying on it.

Thinker automation AI is much better than default, both for formers and governors, but they are an "all or nothing" affair - you'll follow it's internal logic to a T with little flexibility. So for example, if I don't want to build Recreation Commons (something I usually do to save money) you'll have to constantly intervene in the governor queues. I'm not sure how the vanilla AI works here but I remember it allowed you to pass on certain buildings if you prioritized different agedas? I could be wrong though. And Thinker formers will even destroy previous tile improvements to go with their logic.

For someone not bothering with micromanagement it's great, all Thinker changes are a big positive. But for someone like me who is fucking tired of micromanagement, it's still far from ideal.

 

[attackfighter]

I usually manually control a few formers for building roadways while the rest go on auto. It seems like a good investment to start getting rover formers early on, as Thinker's AI, though much better than vanilla, will still waste a lot of time randomly running around. They will spam forests, boreholes, and sometimes condensers, so you need to be okay with that. I am.

For base automation, I think it works better late-game than early. Upkeep costs won't be as important then, and there will be lots of good stuff for it to build, like satellites. I think going with the 'Build' governor is optimal. Alternatively, once I conquer a base I will do a one-time queue of all the available buildings I want it to get, then end the queue with stockpile energy. That base will never be touched again. Another possible method is to gift bases to a vassal, if you have one. This is helpful for reducing the tedium of wars, occasionally, as you can put them between you and the enemy and have them deal with the conga lines of crap.

Another thing to reduce management load is to designate some of your bases as 'crap bases' and just have them produce non-stop rover formers, probe teams, etc. I like to divide my bases into 'science bases', 'military bases', and crap bases. Eventually all of them will get tree farms and hab complexes, but you need to have the discipline to stop there.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Lmao its is 2260 and I finally met someone else out there. To be specific, Morgan.

What took you so long, dudes?

Morgan was pretty nice and thanks to all the money I had saved (2600 Energy Credits I think), I loaded up on comm frequencies and research. I then grabbed more frequencies and research. Damn I was SO backwards I was only then teching up to rovers - think I should have put more emphasis on research.

I am now #1 in tech, Contacts and Treaty with everybody. I think I am the only one who does, because I could call the Planetary Council. But I won't. There is no benefit to me from the others knowing about each other, plus I only have like 60 votes with the others have way more - Pravin Lal has 360 votes lmao. I ain't winning that shit bruh.

Only got maps from University, they seem to be doing pretty decently in their own island/continent.

With my adoption of Planned, I will finally get pretty strong. This will also probably lead further down to a war against Morgan, who is probably on the other side of my continent. But that is fine, Morgan is not aggressive and is still pretty far (I think). With 20-30 years of peace I should be able to manage. But I definitively got to take him down eventually.

My new plan, with my existing tech, is to go and bootstrap my own infrastructure and military with my new techs. Some Impact Rovers and Probes should remove most danger from foreign invaders. My veterans of the Fungal Tower Wars should form a good core for my army.

Plus, need more colonies, like double, triple the colonies.

THE HIVE WILL GROWN LARGER!

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Got the Empath Guild thanks to the power of SHENG-JI YANG THOUGHT (and like a thousand energy credits I found) after a few turns of buying the tech. Now building the Citizens' Defense Force, not because I need it, but because I don't want Morganites to have it (you know, it really should give a unique effect for Hive if they have it - they don't need it, after all).
So, thanks to my newfound infiltrations, I did some spying and found out that:
- Everyone seemingly researches faster than me except spartans. From like x1.5 faster to over x6 (holy shit Morgan). Even Believers are doing almost double. No idea why, I think my economy and infrastructure is just that backwards. I'm like the North Korea of Chiron, except we didn't choose to be isolated.
- The world is at peace, with most factions knowing 3 other factions with a few outliers (Morgan knows almost everyone, I know everyone but not telling it, Lal knows 4). All treaties, no vendettas nor pacts. Seems like the AI is playing it smart due to distance - no reason for beef if there's space, just get commerce shekels instead.

- Because I brought tech from everyone, I have the best tech, but will likely be surpassed in a few turns. On the plus side, because not everyone knows everyone, I might be able to play tech broker and keep in a decent zone as long as I have the cash for it.
- Gaians, University and Peacekeepers have no teeth. Gaians don't even have a significant native military, they suck lol.
- University is going broke or putting all their energy into research, one of either.
- Spartans have a small but decent army of Laser-Impact units. They seem to be gearing up for war.

- Morganites are earning x3 the energy credits I am. Expected, honestly. Points wise, they are over x2-x3 ahead of 2nd place.
- Morganites have a pretty big laser-based army, and lots of probe teams. I don't think they are a big risk, but having 10 laser rovers knock on my doors is gonna hurt. I need to probe-up all my territory and stop them from stealing Non-Linear Mathematics. I already sent their "hello" probe back home.
- Believers have the biggest, strongest military in Chiron, with over 40 Impact units - rovers and infantry alike. They're clearly finishing a phase-out of laser for impact. They also have Res-3 armor. Whoever is close to them is a few turns from getting fucked by an army of crusaders, unless they're alone in their continent/island.


Question: Is it better to go "Power" or "Wealth" as Hive? Wealth would help my economy and industry a bit, but the morale penalty hurts, I don't have creches everywhere yet and I'm not sure if its worth alienating Zakharov and Santiago this early.

 

[Silva]

Are you playing with Thinker, The Brazilian Slaughter ? If so, what are your settings? I have:

- AI base spacing 4 (3 spaces minimum),
- Cheap Early Tech off (super slow research)
- Thinker AI controlling my governors and formers
- Playing on Talent difficulty (no AI cheating)


I'm the Hive as well in year ~2350, and after staying behind the early game I managed to stay at second place recently, behind a super powerful Deirdre, with Lal right behind me (they are constantly in Pact Brotherhood, these bastards). Deirdre declared war on me recently and her research advantage means she's deploying weapons beyond my capabilities, so I'm just trying to survive at this point.

 

[attackfighter]

- The world is at peace, with most factions knowing 3 other factions with a few outliers (Morgan knows almost everyone, I know everyone but not telling it, Lal knows 4). All treaties, no vendettas nor pacts. Seems like the AI is playing it smart due to distance - no reason for beef if there's space, just get commerce shekels instead.

Yeah, I think they become angrier the closer together they are. Whenever I spawn close to other factions I have my hands full not only trying to expand into the minimal space available but also dealing with their extreme vehemence. But when I spawn alone, I get to expand at my leisure AND everyone's willing to sign treaties and give me tech.

I'd recommend Wealth as Yang. I think industry becomes exponentially more powerful the closer you get costs to 0 for some mathematical reason I can't explain*, and industry in general seems powerful in AC. Also, I think that the morale changes from social engineering are retroactive, so if you build a bunch of units under Wealth and then switch to power they'll suddenly level up a bunch.

*For instance, if you go from 20% costs to 10% costs, that's a fifty percent reduction in costs, whereas going from 100 to 90 is only a 10% reduction, so the increments get increasingly powerful the more they're stacked.

 

[civac2]

Power is terrible except in some rare circumstances. Industry is a massively more important stat than Morale. If you don't want the Morale hit or diplomatic repercussions of Wealth keep the default Values setting.

 

[Silva]

You know that cheesing tactic I cited above of asking the AI to cease fire on my friends? Morgan is so hell bent on killing Deirdre that he refuses to accept my requests, something rare in my experience.

Probably a consequences of me "probing" him and blaming the Gaians continuously through a recent sunspot/no-comms stretch. Now the guy wants revenge at all costs. I created a monster.

 

[Rassy]

Been reading through the amazing Paean to SMAC previously discussed here https://paeantosmac.wordpress.com, and as a really normie gamer (sorry to brag) I was taken by quite how much potentially game-changing tech and battleground possibilities are introduced near the end of the game... when of course the game is always over. Every single time is my experience. I'm always either long dead or too busy making everything a forest and regretting having to co-exist with Lal's stupid city names for all eternity to really appreciate quite how much these things would matter if there was anyone left to fight.

Its something the writer talks about a lot. How you could make wonderful experiences out of the late game mechanics alone, if only everything wasnt so hyper-accelerated there's barely time to take it in never mind use it to upend the apple cart. Which is impressively realisitic but so tantalising!

So does anyone have any interesting experiences of genuine late game-changers? I'd love to duke it to the death with an equivalent superpower with space missile mechanics but it seems like it would take an extremely unlikely balancing act to ever reach that point given the leaps and bounds that precede it.

 

[Average Manatee]

; Faction placement can also add two nutrient bonus tiles for each land-based faction.
; 0 = disable for all, 1 = enable for AIs only, 2 = enable for all.
nutrient_bonus=1

Hmm, sneaky AI-only bonuses in thinker mod. This would explain why the AI seems to take off in growth so early even on even difficulty levels. Set it to 2 myself. I assume its like this because AI can't cope well without it.

 

[Average Manatee]

Actually, Induktio that option doesn't seem to be working for me. At least I assume you're supposed to get 2 nutrients within your starting base limits. It seems to usually happen but not always. Also sometimes the nutrients have fungus on them which should probably be removed if the point is to give everyone a more balanced start. It also seems to never work for me when I play the Nautilus Pirates.

 

[Silva]

Yearly reminder that re-tooling production between secret projects doesn't make sense. At the very least there should be a 50% minerals penalty cost for the new project.

The ideal would be for secret projects to have categories just like facilities (explore, discover, build, conquer) and re-tooling inside the same category incurring a 50% minerals lost penalty, while outside the category losing all progress altogether.

 

[Silva]

I could swear I saw a response to my post above. Maybe the faggot deleted it. Anyway, I understand all gameplay balancing concerns and yada yada, but nah it's still too abuse-proning being able to retool 100% of minerals for another project. A 50% minerals penalty would be a good compromise.

I think Civ4 went away with retooling projects/wonders altogether? Can't remember but I believe so.

 

[Average Manatee]

Keep in mind that you can use crawlers to rush SPs at 1:1 return so there's never a reason to waste production on an SP if this was implemented. If an SP costs 500 minerals then you just need to spend 500 minerals in crawlers then build it in one turn. So changing this wouldn't matter much for players, aside from the pre-crawler SPs.

 

[Silva]

Yeah, that would require revising rushing functionalities (as well as crawling abuse). Changing it in a vacuum wouldn't make sense. EDIT: Choppers are also OP and should be revised.

Another thing an eventual SMAC 2 could do is more customizable scenarios. Like any number of selectable factions from 2 to 14 on the same map; or a story mode with pre-set scenarios following the leaders story arcs - like a scenario where a 1-city Domai try to get free from the Hive in a zoomed-in corner of the map (so no "crossing right map border leads to left map border"), or 1v1 face-offs between rivals (Deirdre vs Morgan, Miriam vs Zakharov), etc.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

This is like the ultimate game for autists: if I cultivate this square for +4 solar credits, and start researching this tech at exactly turn 3,094, then Earthworms will spawn on Sister Miriam's dildo in exactly 4 seasons...

Meanwhile normal strategy fans play superior games like Battle Brothers.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Yearly reminder that re-tooling production between secret projects doesn't make sense. At the very least there should be a 50% minerals penalty cost for the new project.

The ideal would be for secret projects to have categories just like facilities (explore, discover, build, conquer) and re-tooling inside the same category incurring a 50% minerals lost penalty, while outside the category losing all progress altogether.

An interesting idea.

Would also put a kibosh on the "Secret Project Consolation Prize" silliness in which the moment one Secret Project gets built, another one gets built in the next turn from the second-runner re-tooling their almost-complete SP immediately.

One thing I would like to see are National Wonders like Civilization IV, which are like Wonders-light which every civilization can build once. They were a neat way to further specialize a city.

Since we're likely never going to get a remake or something, it will be the community which will provide, as always. Let us hope for the success of an Open Source port.

Are you playing with Thinker, @The Brazilian Slaughter ? If so, what are your settings? I have:

Yes.

; Allow Thinker to manage player-owned bases when governor is enabled.
manage_player_bases=1

; Allow Thinker to manage player-owned colony pods/formers when automated.
manage_player_units=1

; Limit how many bases the AI factions should have before they stop colony pod
; production entirely. This expansion limit remains fixed for all map sizes.
; Global base limit imposed by the game engine will always be 512 bases.
expansion_limit=100

; Improved tech cost mechanic to increase late game research costs (see Details.md)
; Tech costs scale relative to the level of current research item, instead of the
; old version where costs increased according to the amount of techs a faction had.
revised_tech_cost=1

; When enabled, revised_tech_cost also takes into account the number of known techs to faction.
; This option is more like between the old and new tech cost mechanics.
cheap_early_tech=1

; When revised_tech_cost and Tech Stagnation options are enabled, multiply all
; tech costs by this percentage. Vanilla default is 150.
tech_stagnate_rate=200


; Adjust the movement speed on magtubes compared to regular roads.
; For example magtube_movement_rate=2 enables twice as fast movement than on roads.
; Setting this to 0 allows zero cost for magtube movement (vanilla default).
; Values greater than 3 may result in limited maximum speeds when used with high-speed units.
magtube_movement_rate=3

; Probe team infiltration on other factions can expire after a time period when this is enabled.
; When infiltration is discovered and removed, a dialog box will be displayed for both factions.
counter_espionage=1


; Make the combat calculation ignore reactor power and treat every unit as having
; a fission reactor. More advanced reactors still provide their usual cost discounts.
; Planet busters are unaffected by this feature.
ignore_reactor_power=1

; Faction placement can also add two nutrient bonus tiles for each land-based faction.
; 0 = disable for all, 1 = enable for AIs only, 2 = enable for all.
nutrient_bonus=1


I'm using expansion_limit = 100 because I'm playing on the Very Huge map.

What is your KKK on cheap_early_tech? Is the pure new tech mechanic better?

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Hint for people with 1366x768 monitors:
The game crashes a fuckload in my default monitor resolution. I recommend DirectDraw=1, windowed=0 and using 1360x768 instead.
I tried other resolutions but they either crashed or didn't look as good.
Tried windowed either, but it seems every windowed resolution I choose either crashed or made the top of the game window go out of the monitor's bounds, for some reason.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

If/When you get to see other civs post their maps. I'd be interested to see how well Thinker develops cities when it has tons of room to grow and not much pressure from neighbors

Just got my map. I'm going to work right now, so here's a taste:

 

[Silva]

Hint for people with 1366x768 monitors:
The game crashes a fuckload in my default monitor resolution. I recommend DirectDraw=1, windowed=0 and using 1360x768 instead.

Interestingly this is my fave resolution (1366x768) even in my full HD monitor because it gives good map visilbility while leaving leader faces and that futurist lower panel big enough in my screen to help my immersion. Thanks for the tip about crashing.

; Limit how many bases the AI factions should have before they stop colony pod
; production entirely. This expansion limit remains fixed for all map sizes.
; Global base limit imposed by the game engine will always be 512 bases.
expansion_limit=100

Is this value a universal limit (AKA all factions bases summed up together) or individual for each faction? The default being 50, I suspect it's individual. I dropped it in my game to 30 to mitigate the ICS/infinite city sprawl syndrome, but I don't know if it worked. In my game in Normal map size most factions have between 12 to 25 bases.

One thing I would like to see are National Wonders like Civilization IV, which are like Wonders-light which every civilization can build once. They were a neat way to further specialize a city.

Agreed. Those mini wonders were cool.

Other thing Civ 4 does better IMO is technology trading - you can only trade techs you researched yourself. While the verosimiltude of this is debatable, I find it's effects on gameplay more interesting as it makes the choices of what to research more impactful, and avoids the banal free flowing of tech that ultimately happen in SMAC.

What is your KKK on cheap_early_tech? Is the pure new tech mechanic better?

I've played two games, one to the end with cheap early tech OFF and other to midgame with cheap tech ON. I've found research progress too slow in the former and too fast on the later. In the later it was so fast I couldn't differentiate it from vanilla (but it's some time since I played vanilla so I could be mistaken). I feel my ideal spot would be a middle ground between cheap tech ON and OFF options.

I play with the vanilla option "Stagnant Tech" OFF though. Maybe it's necessary to turn it on too for "cheap early tech" to become this supposed middle ground?

 

[Silva]

By the way, what would be some good tips for reducing the ICS and making TALL PLAY more viable? I know it's not entirely possible and the player will self-handicap to some degree but I would like to try anyway. How about these, I want your thoughts and contributions:

1. Rules-wise:

- Increase the "Bases Spacing", and reduce "Expansion Limit" sets on Thinker .ini. This should make the AI build less bases overall.
- Let the default drones-for-pop ratio at "Talent" level in the Thinker .ini. Aka 3 citizens before a drone shows up. This allows developing bases taller than otherwise tougher difficulty options allow (eg: Transcendi which allows just 1 citizen before the first drone).
- What else?

2. Strategy-wise:

- Go with Factions with more energy or research output potential. That means Zakharov, Aki-Zeta, Morgan and Lal? Morgan is a weird case as his initial habitation limits means going wide at first, but soon after that going tall with Free Market + Wealth and swim in energy. While Lal even with no innate energy bonus can get golden ages easy and his +2 pop limit helps going tall.
- Agressive Former and Crawlers use. Consider building 2 formers per base instead of only 1, and prepare the terrain around for the upcoming wave of crawlers. Also, go hard on Planet, AKA lots of boreholes, mirrors, raising terrain east of bases, etc. (btw, do minerals collected by crawlers outside base zone accrue eco-damage? I can't remember but think not)
- Agressive Specialists use
- Projects... what to prioritize?
- What else?


P.S: what Civ entry has the better Tall vs Wide balance in your opinion? I have the impression Civ 4 was the closest one, but even it was not that well tuned and playing wide had an advantage. Civ 5 went all-in on tall play to the point of taking the other option out the equation, while Civ 6 seems to have swinged back to wide furiously.

 

[Average Manatee]

I recall reading something that said AI in Thinker is supposed to sort of soft-limit itself to # of bases around what players use, so that if you don't ICS out to 100 bases then the AI won't either. No idea how large of a range the AI is allowed to do it, or what happens when you just have a huge map with infinite space.

I think just increasing base spacing by 2 would do it pretty well. I don't think the AI needs buffs on drone or anything. If you're talking about incentivizing the player though then it works. Also let cities grow larger earlier (both in terms of cap and in terms of # of turns to grow) would help a lot. As it is with a 7 cap city you're incentivized to ICS pretty hard even if they can all work tiles, and it takes a long time to grow to 7 pop.

I generally go 2 formers per city anyway even with aggressive ICSing. There's ALWAYS something for former to do, you really can't have enough. Maybe make the # of units supported to base completely scale based on number of pops? e.g. for 0 support you could make it 50% of pop size (minimum 1), scaling up to what 4 support adds.

(btw, do minerals collected by crawlers outside base zone accrue eco-damage? I can't remember but think not)

Supposed to be that all mineral production except orbital causes eco damage. I always crawl lots of extra minerals to the capital and it always has lots of eco damage.

I play with the vanilla option "Stagnant Tech" OFF though. Maybe it's necessary to turn it on too for "cheap early tech" to become this supposed middle ground?

This is what I've been using. IMO the very early techs are still a little bit too slow on higher difficulty levels but it's OK

 

[Silva]

This is what I've been using. IMO the very early techs are still a little bit too slow on higher difficulty levels but it's OK

Wait, do difficulty levels affect research speed? I been playing on Talent to test the AI without bonuses. If you're correct, then this could be speeding up my research..

And I couldn't discern your preferences above (surely a language barrier), so: do you actually USE the vanilla option Stagnant Tech together with Thinker, or not?

 

[Average Manatee]

Yes I use stagnant tech + cheaper early tech (which I think is how base SMAC did it so Thinker is just re-implementing this normal feature).

I've looked around and can't find a detailed list of what difficulty effects. I'm pretty sure its a modest increase to research time. But by far biggest change is of course the other penalties players get like extra drones and bureaucracy. In the end the exact tech cost isn't as huge of a penalty as needing to spend more minerals on things like drones and former time, because your optimal growth curve looks exponential. For this reason 2x tech cost from Stagnant Tech is only really like +25-50% research time because your constantly increasing research catches up to tech cost once you've got the basics.