4X The Unsurpassed Brian Reynolds' Alpha Centauri thread

[Cael]

I wanted to know how and when the interceptor scrambling happens, not a six-paragraph post saying "don't build interceptors".

How about a 3-word paragraph, then:

Don't build interceptors.

 

[Silva]

What about the issue I've read that with Thinker factions will behave "out of character", as a consequence of their acquiring a "competent" AI?
Any truth to this statement?

I want to know this too, as keeping with the theme is half the fun of SMAC for me. I do funny voices and all while playing. :D

 

[Induktio]

What about the issue I've read that with Thinker factions will behave "out of character", as a consequence of their acquiring a "competent" AI?
Any truth to this statement?

It depends on which changes you consider significant. For starters, they develop economically much differently than vanilla AI factions. They do have some variation in strategies they implement, so not all AIs will be identical. Note that if social_ai feature is enabled, the AI factions might sometimes pick social engineering choices that differ from their defaults but it doesn't happen that often. It had to be done because otherwise vanilla AIs will cripple themselves with huge cumulative penalties too often. It's a configurable Thinker feature however so if somebody says it's fixed and cannot be changed, that is misinformation.

 

[Silva]

What about the issue I've read that with Thinker factions will behave "out of character", as a consequence of their acquiring a "competent" AI?
Any truth to this statement?

It depends on which changes you consider significant. For starters, they develop economically much differently than vanilla AI factions. They do have some variation in strategies they implement, so not all AIs will be identical. Note that if social_ai feature is enabled, the AI factions might sometimes pick social engineering choices that differ from their defaults but it doesn't happen that often. It had to be done because otherwise vanilla AIs will cripple themselves with huge cumulative penalties too often. It's a configurable Thinker feature however so if somebody says it's fixed and cannot be changed, that is misinformation.

This didnt say shit to me.

Is Deirdre still respectful for planet or will she do boreholes left and right?

 

[Induktio]

Duhh :D

Yes, Deirdre will build enhanced terraforming like boreholes but somewhat less than the usual factions. Deirdre is sometimes a little bit OP in this mod since all the research choices tend to maximize that AI's economic output very fast.

 

[oldbonebrown]

How do I change the game back to low resolution when running Will to Power? Changing directdraw in alpha centauri.ini does nothing

 

[Induktio]

While I feel like Thinker is currently mostly feature complete, I'm still planning on doing some more updates for it. These might deal with tweaking the AI further a little bit.

For those who have played it, have you encountered any weird situations with the AI in the current version? Are there some situations where you could see it needs improvement? Savegames would be useful. And how about any other feature requests?

 

[Induktio]

There's a new develop build of Thinker available now from the repo. It mostly deals with updating the base garrisoning priorities and adds these config options: cheap_early_tech, render_probe_labels, foreign_treaty_popup. Probably useful quality of life stuff.

What else will be included in the release depends mostly on the player feedback. Any playtesting experiences would be very useful to know.

 

[oldbonebrown]

I've been playing quite a bit of Thinker and enjoying it.
The only "problem" I have is that conquered &/ pacted AI is really prone to aggressively expanding into "my" territory. They find a little notch where their borders poke into mine and plop down a base there, and then keep on doing that until they cut my land in half and I have to right this with military force.
I do expect this uppity behaviour from every single on of those buggers - but it's very sad, I really like my little conquered factions and hate having to cut them down to size.

 

[oldbonebrown]

It was maybe funny the first time when my long time pact sister Santiago did it while I was at war with two other factions and had no time over for her. She really did create a line of bases that split my huge territory in two, legally annexing crucial terraformed land.

More recently when Miriam tried it I had to put up two extra bases at key points of my border just to stem the tide of colony pods, or she was on her way to doing the exact same thing.

 

[chuft]

Been a long time, but can't you get them to give you a base in the Diplomacy screen as part of a deal?

 

[oldbonebrown]

Been a long time, but can't you get them to give you a base in the Diplomacy screen as part of a deal?

You can try that
as part of a deal....

Spoiler

No I think the solution in the future will have to be to expect it of any really close neighbour, and build bases along my border where they are likely to enter

 

[Utfärd]

About interceptors, they can definitely cause a lot of unintended problems while positioned in bases that come under attack (as we've found out the hard way lol) but I recently came across a post by CEO Aaaron from yesteryear which alerted me to the following:

"Remember that scrambed interceptors fight a needlejet's attack value, but on your turn, they go after the defense"

Checked it and sure enough - holds up. This is pretty yuge since even a gun interceptor can take out unarmoured needlejets provided they're kept somewhere safe for defensive purposes. Might be a good idea to build a couple of airbases and keep interceptors at hand for this purpose, or in late game, to keep a bunch on carriers here and there.

 

[Induktio]

I've been playing quite a bit of Thinker and enjoying it.
The only "problem" I have is that conquered &/ pacted AI is really prone to aggressively expanding into "my" territory. They find a little notch where their borders poke into mine and plop down a base there, and then keep on doing that until they cut my land in half and I have to right this with military force.
I do expect this uppity behaviour from every single on of those buggers - but it's very sad, I really like my little conquered factions and hate having to cut them down to size.

Hmm, I agree that's kinda funny. Currently I guess the only sure way to limit that is not to leave any gaps in the territory where additional bases can be placed. It is controlled by base_spacing variable. You could maybe try base_spacing=4 so there's less possibilities to plop more bases on those gaps. Don't really recommend it on smallest map sizes though.

Additionally if the faction has surrendered, you can propose any base exchange and they should accept it. Newest version modifies this base trading logic from defaults but it should accept any swap IF the faction has surrendered and there's a pact.

 

[chuft]

About interceptors, they can definitely cause a lot of unintended problems while positioned in bases that come under attack (as we've found out the hard way lol) but I recently came across a post by CEO Aaaron from yesteryear which alerted me to the following:

"Remember that scrambed interceptors fight a needlejet's attack value, but on your turn, they go after the defense"

Checked it and sure enough - holds up. This is pretty yuge since even a gun interceptor can take out unarmoured needlejets provided they're kept somewhere safe for defensive purposes. Might be a good idea to build a couple of airbases and keep interceptors at hand for this purpose, or in late game, to keep a bunch on carriers here and there.

That is true. Scrambled Interceptions fight gun to gun, but on normal turn, they fight weapon-to-armor. Its a bit ridiculous, actually - because armoring Needlejets is too cost prohibitive for anyone ever to do so. Interceptors always fighting attack-to-attack would make far more sense.

I guess it depends on how realistic you want to be, but it doesn't seem ridiculous to me. The big aces in both world wars scored their kills, most of the time, when the enemy was not even aware they were there until the bullets hit their cockpit. It was more like hunting than a fight. A dogfight is a fair fight and you want to avoid that as much as possible. You want to bounce the enemy planes when they are doing their thing and don't see you coming out of the sun.

Similarly the Me-262 jet was quite deadly and much faster than the Allied propeller planes tasked with fighting it. Their solution was to wait for it to be done with its mission and then ambush it when it was trying to land, and was slow and vulnerable with a predictable flight path.

You should get a bonus for attacking an enemy that has expended munitions and fuel and is preparing to return home. If they force you to scramble and meet them head on, why should you get an advantage? You're the one caught on the back foot.

 

[oldbonebrown]

Anyone looking to join the next codex PBEM game? Two spots open
Sparta, Morgan and Peacekeepers taken

 

[civac2]

I'd be willing to play either Morgan or Peacekeepers.

 

[BING XI LAO]

I would, but I'm pretty sure I got banned from Codex SMAC PBEMs for some reason - no one invited me for the last ones.

Also I'm really busy lately. Maybe in a few months

Apparently you stalled a couple of times. But I've only seen it mentioned in the context of you being a BRO.
Also, if you're really busy, it sounds like you might do so again, to be fair.

BTW, if you stall in an Age of Wonders PBEM it wouldn't matter so much, because those are generally run several at a time with fewer players in each, less mental investment into a game (because you don't need to micro complex infrastructure) and with a utility program to handle download/upload of turns. So you are still very welcome to play in one of those! Though we deffo don't have the people for that 12 man game you wanted, still less with only Codexers...

 

[BING XI LAO]

So you are still very welcome to play in one of those! Though we deffo don't have the people for that 12 man game you wanted, still less with only Codexers...

That would be neat! Been a while since I last played AOW tho, and you guys new exotic mods and whatnot, so I would need some help there in that department.

Hey, every man counts when it comes to the Great 12 man game! Perhaps it demands a thread for itself? The Age of Wonders Twelve Man Grand Game? If we could get your AOWHaven buddies and some codexers, perhaps...

Well the largest PBEM I've been in so far has only had 7 players, I think the practical goal would be 8 players. Even if we found 12 it would take forever for turn to cycle and if someone dropped out we'd need to find yet another person to fill in.

 

[shywn]

There was a time when I had it installed in my pen-drive and would play a turn on University Library computers.

Shirley you must mean a turn on the University Network Nodes?

 

[oldbonebrown]

Well the largest PBEM I've been in so far has only had 7 players, I think the practical goal would be 8 players. Even if we found 12 it would take forever for turn to cycle and if someone dropped out we'd need to find yet another person to fill in.

The game only supports 7 players. No mod yet has broken that limit. We can only dream of that day.

 

[BING XI LAO]

Well the largest PBEM I've been in so far has only had 7 players, I think the practical goal would be 8 players. Even if we found 12 it would take forever for turn to cycle and if someone dropped out we'd need to find yet another person to fill in.

The game only supports 7 players. No mod yet has broken that limit. We can only dream of that day.

I was talking about AoW in that latter part of my post. But honestly, for PBEM 7 players feels like a practical limit because every added player extends turn time.

 

[BING XI LAO]

You guys planning anything? If yes, hit me up on Discord. You can see me there on the AOW 1 Discord yo

We're always throwing out new PBEMs. I may as well ping you from time to time then!

 

[Cael]

I wouldn't mind having a MP (my first; I only played SP before) as Gaians, but my schedule is pretty bad at the moment. Projects is a shit job to be in when you have crews falling over from the China virus and not knowing one week to the next what is going to happen...

 

[oldbonebrown]

What determines when Communications Blackouts occurs?