4X The Unsurpassed Brian Reynolds' Alpha Centauri thread

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

I have to agree that Spartans are the weakest of the OG 7. Not just mechanically, but also story-wise - the lore doesn't seem to decide between itself if the Spartans are aggressive expansionists, or just a bunch of kinda-paranoid survivalists with itchy trigger fingers. Doesn't help that they act like the former, but claim to be the later.

I like playing Sparta for the ease of policing and getting Elite units, but overall they're simply development-wise the weakest faction. They're pretty much the Impact Rover Rush Faction, although I have seen super-strong Sparta when they are left alone to develop by the AI, which is weird.

Some people think Morgan is the weakest of the OG 7, but he's just situational - Morgan alone on a continent or near a friendly non-aggressive nation can do some cool stuff.

If you wanna see good AI duel, watch out for those games with Yang and Miriam near to each other, not too close, just close enough that both can expand decently. Eternal War between hordes of brainwashed puppets vs fundamentalist zealots. Eventually the first to reach Needlejets wins, or it turns into a Planetbuster flinging context. Sometimes one of the two gets pissy and flings the Planetbuster at someone else nearby, too.

By the way, with the loss of my old netbook, I think I lost my old map pack. Anyone feel like hunting SMAC Maps across the internet?
(anyone else feel like making a big Codex fullhouse game, too?)

Demo/Green/Knowledge with Gaians.

Demo/Green/Knowledge is cookie-cutter Gaians, its pretty much their canon SE. Paradigm Efficiency ftw.

Demo/Planned/Know

Pop Boom Gaians. Gaians with their EFFIC bonus practically ignore the penalty early on, and later on, Knowledge compensates fully.

 

[laclongquan]

Hive tend to horribly damage eco rating of the planet, so if Hive is any good in your game, expect early middle polar melt.

 

[Silva]

Really? I thought eco-damage only effect was sending worms against the pollutant faction.

If you wanna see good AI duel, watch out for those games with Yang and Miriam near to each other, not too close, just close enough that both can expand decently. Eternal War between hordes of brainwashed puppets vs fundamentalist zealots. Eventually the first to reach Needlejets wins, or it turns into a Planetbuster flinging context. Sometimes one of the two gets pissy and flings the Planetbuster at someone else nearby, too.

So it's like Brazil left and right without the jets and Planet Busters then (for NOW anyway). Hehe

 

[CootKeeper]

RE factions you like to play with:

I like the factions that blob the most (mix and matching with crossfire), i.e. the Gaians, Peacekeepers, the Hive, the Believers and the Pirates and then sprinkle in the Morganites and the Angels for flavour. The two alien factions blob the most but i don't really enjoy playing with them as they steamroll the other factions.

I also add each faction an extra 2 free colony pods + 2 formers at the start using the scenario editor (2 sea colony pods for the Pirates) + give everyone free tech (Centauri Ecology and doctrine: flexibility) to make sure they can expand quickly horizontally.

Usually by mid-game (Air Power) each faction manages to be in pretty good shape (min of 12-15 cities of good size). they all become pretty resilient and willing to give a good fight, which makes it fun IMO.

 

[Cael]

The problem with the Alien factions is that they start building those damned pillars and you HAVE to declare on them or lose the game. With other factions, you can take your own sweet time dealing with them because there is technically no time limit.

 

[J1M]

Unrelated comment: I wish this game had more factions like the Pirates, with 'foreign' building preferences. Maybe one that starts only able to work tiles with fungus or another that must build cities adjacent to other cities, etc.

 

[Absinthe]

You can never build enough probes... Roze's pre-crawler production is never wasted.

True. Probes are also "clean" like crawlers. Stacks of trance + comm jammer (which is conveniently free for probes) armored probe units make great base defenders, especially when you're in Free Market and thus can't suppress drones with military units anyway. It's a recommended tactic for Morganites with their bad SUPPORT rating (especially if they go Dem and thus have no support at all). It also works well for factions with higher probe rating than morale (Data Angels, Gaians, or anyone with Wealth) because your probe team's morale only cares about your PROBE rating but still applies to combat. If you do something like Dem/Market/Wealth, probe defenders are definitely the way to go.

How is Cult's "potential" bad? -1 econ is trivial, and -1 industry just means it's slightly more expensive to rush. Neither are crippling like -growth, -support, -research, -probe or -police. Starting with both Centauri Ecology and Social Psych MORE than makes up for those trivial maluses. Wealth is terrible for anyone except Morgan.

His builder game is weaker than anyone's, which means he'll fall behind hard. While you're right that -1 ECON by itself means almost nothing, the problem is that -1 ECON means Free Market only takes him to +1 ECON and since he cannot also run the Wealth value, it means he cannot attain the important +2 ECON needed to get +1 energy in every tile. Every serious builder knows the power of reaching +2 ECON. Also, Wealth is underestimated. The +1 ECON on top of Free Market (for +3 ECON total) not only gives you an extra +2 energy per base, but also increases your commerce rating, boosting your rewards from trade. On top of that the +1 INDUSTRY not only accelerates production but also gives you discounts for hurrying thanks to the reduced mineral costs.

So Cha-Dawn has terrible production (just like Santiago) and terrible income (unlike Santiago), so he's the worst at the builder game.

Meanwhile, your bases come with free Brood Pits, which is basically +2 Police for free. Police is awesome.

Also 25% cheaper mindworm production, but you only get the free Brood Pits once you've researched Centauri Genetics. That's a little late. More relevant is the fact that Cha-Dawn can use mind worms as police (double drone suppression), letting him use captured mind worms (which are maintenance free, unlike regular mind worms, which are only maintenance free on fungus tiles) to reduce the need for a psych building or two.

Really? I thought eco-damage only effect was sending worms against the pollutant faction.

No, you generally need at least 6 worm-infested fungal blooms happening within a specific window of time. I once triggered global warming just by going trigger happy with nerve gas pods. Anyhow, here's the formula:

Once again, access to the code, and working with it for patch/modding purposes, has enabled me to find one of the undescribed formulas; this time, it's for when a fungal pop will trigger global warming (water rising). So here it is (I'm pretty sure it's correct):

1. Find the current water level (0 is what it starts as; it's increased by global warming and the "Melt the Polar Ice Caps" council action, and lowered by launching a solar shade, but it only counts the "Global sea levels are rising dramatically!" and "Global sea levels are falling dramatically!" messages that come with actual changes, not the "the sea will rise/fall X amount over the next Y years" messages. Each message increases/decreases it by 1.) Multiply this by 3.
2. Divide this by the "Sea level rises" value from ALPHAX worldbuilding.
3. Add 6.
4. Count the number of worm-producing fungal pops (by any faction) since the last time a "the water has begun rising" message appeared. If this is at least as much as the result from step 3, the water will begin to rise.

Default "sea level rises" value for both SMAC and SMAX is 5, by the way.

 

[Silva]

Ended up getting the Angels on a AX default game (Ironman, with Aliens present), and I got the best setup possible: isolated on an island far from the aliens with all other factions between me and them (the aliens). I'm allied with all humans and backing them up against the aliens. Only Cha Dawn give me headaches going from truce to vendettas. Now I'm sending foil probe teams to capture alien bases and give them to the frontline allies. When some members of my coalition fight each other I intervene for them to drop the vendetta, or sabotage one of their bases and blame an Alien faction. It's been working beautifully so far.

Now that I've been playing Roze more, I see she is almost identical to Morgan. You want to befriend everybody and be quiet at your corner, acumulating money and secretly manipulating people against each other.

I'm almost feeling like illuminati.

 

[Average Manatee]

Have never played a long game vs. aliens, wouldn't it make diplomacy sort of effortless? The AI in SMAC is very into "enemy of my enemy is my friend" stuff, to the point where they'll forgive capturing half their cities if you go destroy 20 units of their other enemies. With everyone hating aliens I'd expect it to turn into a human hugbox.

 

[Cael]

Have never played a long game vs. aliens, wouldn't it make diplomacy sort of effortless? The AI in SMAC is very into "enemy of my enemy is my friend" stuff, to the point where they'll forgive capturing half their cities if you go destroy 20 units of their other enemies. With everyone hating aliens I'd expect it to turn into a human hugbox.

It does, especially if you have that alien faction that is into genocide in the game. After a while, you can be friends with everyone (including the relatively friendly alien faction) except that faction. The problem starts when the friendly alien faction starts building those damned pylons...

 

[Silva]

Is it dishonorable playing on Thinker? I feel like Transcendi promotes even more early ICS with the "drone after first citizen" rule.

Have never played a long game vs. aliens, wouldn't it make diplomacy sort of effortless? The AI in SMAC is very into "enemy of my enemy is my friend" stuff, to the point where they'll forgive capturing half their cities if you go destroy 20 units of their other enemies. With everyone hating aliens I'd expect it to turn into a human hugbox.

Damn, I thought it was all my diplomatic skills.

 

[CootKeeper]

Is it dishonorable playing on Thinker? I feel like Transcendi promotes even more early ICS with the "drone after first citizen" rule.

Nah I agree. Thinker's the good difficulty level, fair without becoming a puzzle.

As for diplomacy, I like playing with custom rules, the one about making diplomacy stringy-er. things get messy and factions are much more prone to build units. The Hive really become THE enemy.

 

[Silva]

Is it dishonorable playing on Thinker? I feel like Transcendi promotes even more early ICS with the "drone after first citizen" rule.

Nah I agree. Thinker's the good difficulty level, fair without becoming a puzzle.

As for diplomacy, I like playing with custom rules, the one about making diplomacy stringy-er. things get messy and factions are much more prone to build units. The Hive really become THE enemy.

You mean the "factions more agressive" one?

 

[CootKeeper]

Is it dishonorable playing on Thinker? I feel like Transcendi promotes even more early ICS with the "drone after first citizen" rule.

Nah I agree. Thinker's the good difficulty level, fair without becoming a puzzle.

As for diplomacy, I like playing with custom rules, the one about making diplomacy stringy-er. things get messy and factions are much more prone to build units. The Hive really become THE enemy.

You mean the "factions more agressive" one?

it's the "intense rivalry" one. i guess it's a matter of taste for a rule change but i reckon it makes the game more fun.

i like the "tech stagnation" and "blind research" ones as well.

 

[Jason Liang]

I like accelerated start, but for something different try playing SMAC/X without building Secret Projects.

Spoiler

Pay the iron price for them!

 

[Dzupakazul]

I like accelerated start, but for something different try playing SMAC/X without building Secret Projects.

How is that tough? Having both Human Genome Project *and* a bunch of leftover Impact Rovers is a much loftier proposition than having just a Human Genome Project.

 

[Cael]

Just a warning for the tall builders out there: You can get city pop so high it will WRAP AROUND. Been there, done that with massed nutrient satellites.

 

[Average Manatee]

If you haven't transcended by 240 turns after unlocking the infinite city size upgrade you deserve everything bad that can happen to you.

Spoiler

Of course, there's also the exploit where you spam colony pods and add them to a colony to take it over the hab cap, but then you deserve everything bad that can happen to you times infinity

 

[Cael]

Just a warning for the tall builders out there: You can get city pop so high it will WRAP AROUND. Been there, done that with massed nutrient satellites.

kek

How high you went? Lemme guess, 256 pop?

Can't remember. It was either that or 128. It wasn't that high a number.

 

[Absinthe]

I have to agree that Spartans are the weakest of the OG 7. Not just mechanically, but also story-wise - the lore doesn't seem to decide between itself if the Spartans are aggressive expansionists, or just a bunch of kinda-paranoid survivalists with itchy trigger fingers. Doesn't help that they act like the former, but claim to be the later.

Yeah, the main bonus Spartans get to their builder game is their +1 POLICE rating letting them hold off on drone suppression. Police State Spartans is an option in that sense since the extra drone suppression from 3 POLICE and support rating would let you go former heavy and drone-control your cities while skipping psych buildings, which offsets your INDUSTRY penalty. The downside of Police State is of course that it works pretty horribly with Planned or Free Market. You can also convert morale into cash by worm-popping aggressively.

I like playing Sparta for the ease of policing and getting Elite units, but overall they're simply development-wise the weakest faction. They're pretty much the Impact Rover Rush Faction, although I have seen super-strong Sparta when they are left alone to develop by the AI, which is weird.

My guess is Spartans went Dem/Market/Knowledge to build up aggressively. Leave anyone alone long enough with those SE settings and they will end up out-developing the competition. It's also possible Santiago got her hands on a Cloning Vats for easy pop booms.

Some people think Morgan is the weakest of the OG 7, but he's just situational - Morgan alone on a continent or near a friendly non-aggressive nation can do some cool stuff.

Morgan's typically hit-or-miss. Either he is ridiculously powerful or he is shit. There's no real middle ground. If someone decides to push Morgan's shit in early on though he's probably screwed.

Demo/Green/Knowledge is cookie-cutter Gaians, its pretty much their canon SE. Paradigm Efficiency ftw.

It's also overrated. 7 EFFIC is such overkill that unless you are running a giant sprawling empire, it's not doing all that much beyond what 4 EFFIC does. If you do have a giant sprawling empire though, 7 EFFIC will really carry its weight against bureaucracy drones and energy loss to inefficiency.

Pop Boom Gaians. Gaians with their EFFIC bonus practically ignore the penalty early on, and later on, Knowledge compensates fully.

Pretty much the way to go. You can also swap Knowledge for Wealth and go Golden Age Gaians. This allows you to pop boom without a creche and collect +1 energy per tile like Free Market does, since a Golden Age gives a base +1 ECON. The 2 INDUSTRY is also nice. But Golden Ages are tricky to manage, especially in higher difficulties with more drones. Dunno what difficulty people play multiplayer at.

 

[CRPG Fanatic 101]

Is Alpha Centauri a good game to play after you've exhausted MOO2 replayability ? Or would Space Empires 4 or some other game fill the void better?

 

[Absinthe]

Not too familiar with MOO2 or Space Empires 4. If you're asking me if SMAC is a good game that you can waste a ton of time playing over and over again, the answer is a resounding yes. My default recommendation to anyone who gets SMAC is to play it in classic (NOT the Alien Crossfire expansion) first. The expansion added a lot of unnecessary things that sort of brought down the game. It will ruin your first impression of the game. Only play the expansion should you feel like experiencing the extra content.

 

[DakaSha V]

Is Alpha Centauri a good game to play after you've exhausted MOO2 replayability ? Or would Space Empires 4 or some other game fill the void better?

AC is nothing like Moo2, in gameplay, or theme.
(AC is arguably a better game though)

 

[Destroid]

Is Alpha Centauri a good game to play after you've exhausted MOO2 replayability ? Or would Space Empires 4 or some other game fill the void better?

MoO1

 

[laclongquan]

SE4 is very nice but the soul is gone from SE5