posted 04-03-99 02:42 PM ET        

1) The Planetary Governor should be able to call emergency Council meetings, especially if Global Warming is taking place.

2) The Nessus Canyon should be included in any generated maps. Why it is not included is beyond me - if it isn't used by the map generator, why put it in the game in the first place?

3) This is a pet peeve of mine - the player should be able to know rival factions' social engineering choices. In the real world, for example, China knows that the US is a capitalist democracy. In SMAC, why can't this information be obtained?

4) Sunspot Activity shouldn't disrupt interfactional communications. On Earth they don't, so why do they on Chiron? If sunspots have to disrupt communications, there should be a Council option to establish some sort of global network communications.

5) There should be a fifth social engineering row available for player customization/scenario development.

6) Why is there a seven nation limit in almost every strategy game I've played? In Civ1, Civ2, and in SMAC this limit has held true. I HATE THAT! GET RID OF IT, NOW!

7) There should be an option to abandon bases and have its population relocate to nearby bases that can support them, with maybe one or two population units going to each selected base. This would reflect real-world immigration. Of course, this shouldn't be a viable option if enemy troops are nearby.

8) Does anyone really use Free Market economics? I didn't think so. Why not replace it with Regulated economics (as in the US/Japanese/European economies)? This would have bonuses in energy and/or industry and growth, and penalties in support and morale, or something similar.

9) The Hive seems to me to be slightly unbalanced; realistically, it unnatural social experiments would have greater penalties in growth, economy, and (yes) efficiency.

10) In my game, the Borehole Cluster has a bug - I get the Borehole Cluster interlude whenever anyone first approaches the cluster, not when I approach it. Firaxis should fix this.

11) Eventually, all the ice in the ice caps would melt away. There should be a limit to ice cap melting.

12) There should be a Council proposal to introduce genetically engineered microbes into the environent that would kill off the fungus and mindworms, taking around 10 years to complete. During those 10 years, the fungus' area would get progressively smaller.

13) Drones shouldn't be productive on the Resource map in the Base control screen.

14) (I took this one from Deadron) Cities currently display what they are building underneath their name; they should also display how many turns remain until the completion of that item. E.g.:
University Base
(Colony Pod- 2 Turns)

Nothing is perfect, but SMAC could go a long way towards perfection by implementing these ideas. Any feedback?

posted 04-03-99 05:09 PM ET         

to 7):
Building colony pods until the base is empty accomplishes that. After all, those people do not want to wander around on Chiron on foot, do they ?

to 8):
Maybe tweaking Free Market a bit should do the trick. Reduce the police penalty, and add an industry penalty instead: Industry is focusing on producing luxury goods instead of what you want them to produce. Also, green should have a penalty on industry for rather obvious reasons.

to 9):
Yeah. The 'immunity to negative efficiency' does seem more than a little unbalancing. Why not make if 'negative efficience modifiers are halved' ?

to 11):
Agreed. 300m is scary, but 1000m is ridiculous, except if the ice caps of Chiron reach up into the stratosphere.

posted 04-03-99 09:01 PM ET            

16)Break Pact option. Reduces a pact to a treaty. I wanted to break a pact but the game wouldn't let me

17)After you repeal UN Attrocites Act, all the economic sanctions against you should be gone.

18)Air Bases built by airplane-colony pods.

posted 04-03-99 11:14 PM ET            

Technocrat:
1) That's a good one, but only during Global Warming...

2) Yup.

3) Definatly

4) That's the whole point of sunspot activity! To disrupt comms. If you don't like it then turn random events off.

5) No way! Four is good. A fifth one would totaly throw the game off balance!

6) LOL!

7) Build Colony pods untill it asks you whether you want to abandon the base.

8) Lots of people use Free Market.

9) The Hive is good, it was already balanced in Ver 2.0.

10) Yeah, that's happened to me.

11) I haven't been doing that much melting, so I can't realy say.

12) Ten years to kill planet? No way!

13) That could realy cripple a city... I don't know what it would do to game balance. But generaly I would think it's not too realistic.

14) That's alright.

BlueBlazer:
15) Yeah.

16) To break the pact you say "I decalre this pact null and void", or you right click on the leaders name in the comm box.

17) That's a good one.

18) I havn't tired to build colony needlejets, but airbases are built by terraformers and not colony pods. Plus you cannot build a needle jet former.

19) There are many ways to reduce eco-damage.
Tree farms & Hybrid forests, Centauri Preserves. Or you could increase you Green rating in SE.

Some of my own...

posted 04-04-99 12:13 AM ET            

21) There ought to be an option in diplomatic communications that permits the player to "remind" his/her Pact Brother/Sister that they are under treaty obligation to declare war on another faction with which the player is at war, but not to threaten an end to the pact. In other words, if I'm the UoP, and I'm allied with Lal and at war with Yang, and Lal doesn't want to be at war with Yang, I should be able to get him to declare war without bribes or threats.

With that done, let me defend a few of my earlier points:

4) Mortis, I know that's the point of the Sunspot Activity event, but it's a really unrealistic event and could easily be avoided by a technologically advanced civilization.

5) This wouldn't be unbalancing if the player modifying the game used common sense and a degree of restraint.

6) What is LOL?

7) Everyone, I know that you can build Colony pods to disband a base, but I'm suggesting a one turn option that wouldn't involve the need to buy production in order to beat growth.

8) If you really use Free Market, how on Chiron do you remain sociologically stable without committing atrocities or building Punishment Spheres? Besides, no nation on Earth today employs Free Market economics, and Regulated economics would be more realistic.

12) Mortis, what do you mean "no way?" I remind everyone: PLANET IS ONE INDIVIDUAL! There are thousands/millions of humans! What's more, planet is an individual who has committed countless torturous murders in order to save itself, but its own existence is not so great of worth that it warrants the deaths of thousands of other individuals.

13) I am going to take back this idea. I posted it because it's realistic; the criminal elements of society always resist being productive. However, after some consideration, I think that this would make some factions have tremendous productivity problems.

posted 04-04-99 12:56 AM ET            

RE: Free Market

I felt exactly the same way regarding free market. I was afraid that worms would overrun me, I would never be able to go to war, no one, esp. Dierdre would love me, etc. etc.

It's all wrong. All of it. Well, perhaps everything except for Dierdre not loving me. A guy could at least hope...

First off, play Morgan to get the role-playing feel of a good Free Market. Build a stupid amount of cities, since you're limited to a pop of 4. Perhaps, before the switch, take care of any neighbors. However, this is a good strat if you want to use FM anyway. It's even better with Lal though, since he gets a bigger pop and a Human Genome automatically.

Then, when you have about 15 cities, make the switch.

You may experience some drone riots. You may need to switch to 10% luxury and/or build a lot of rec centers. However, most of that should be built by the 50th year. And 4 pop cities aren't exactly the most unhappy places. Also keep note that with FM, and a 20% lux rate, you can have golden ages easily, which among other things adds +1 to economy. Making the next stuff even better...

The Human Genome Project is a really big bonus too. That's usually essential to getting ahead. Weather Paradigm helps as well, as building Solar Collectors is what you really really want to do. Pholus ridge and sea colonies are great.

Downsides to Free Market that actually don't matter: -5 Police. WOW. That sounds really really harsh. But it isn't. It means that you can't have any units outside your borders without causing unhappiness. Solution: DON'T GO TO WAR. You shouldn't use FM during wartime - it's not geared to that. Modern nations don't - why should Morgan? IN fact, Green econ works great during wartime for Morgan - high planet, makes Dierdre happy, high efficiency (anything to gain energy is good), and -2 growth, which early is completely useless thanks to the 4 pop limit.

As stated above, police early don't help immensely, because there isn't much to be unhappy about. Rec centers take care of most everything, and a rec center + human genome takes care of all unhappiness you might ever have. Also keep in mind that units can still be in your borders without problems (so make your borders VERY big ) and indep units can still go anywhere they want to, since there is no home city to make unhappy. A typical Morgan strat is to REALLY play podlotto, and hope for indy rovers.

Penalties from FM that do matter: -3 Planet. Though not why you may think. This hurts because of worms. Fungus does not spontaneously produce when you have this low of planet, at least not for a very very long time. Early game pollution isn't an issue. Mid game it can be with boreholes - just build preserves/tree farms and everything should be fine. And late game - well, it shouldn't matter too much. Heh heh heh...However, the worms, particularly early on, are a big problem. Your units aren't probably that experienced (they haven't been fighting, after all), and -30% to attacks is almost evil. One boil can spell serious doom. You have to be always on guard against them. Usually lots of sensors to detect, formers to eat fungus, and fast units to attack are enough.

Bonus that kicks ass: +2 Econ. Assuming that you have no bonus, this means that every base gets +1 energy per square used. In addition to the commerce and base bonus.

I'll give you a sec to have that sink in.

FOR EVERY SQUARE MINED, +1 energy. This is the primary reason why Morgan's limited to 4 pop - because unless there is some check, Morgan + FM becomes stupidly overpowering. Even as it is, it's pretty silly, and can occasionally have the effect of causing you to rub your hands together in a fit of Uncle Scroogish glee.

Or, equivalently, this is the same as having a merchant exchange in every single city you own. Not bad for 32 creds and no war, which a lot of players don't want anyway.

Remember, this is not just money. This is energy. This is what fuels money, luxuries, and RESEARCH. A good FM player, with the right management, will ALWAYS be the top of the tech tree. Even UoP can't compete with Morgan's midgame energy shenanigans, all other things being equal.

Problems: Maximizing energy means usually neglecting minerals. This is bad. With Morgan, it's almost catastrophic, because of his support penalty.

Bonuses: HUGE bonus to research. Should be able to go through wonders faster than butter, as buying them becomes easy. Especially after many cities have hab complexes, since from there you just have until pop 14 before problems begin again.

Free Market is probably best for the kind of player I am - a building freak. With it, most cities will be "fully" built within 15 turns. After the initial rush, you will own every single wonder you want. You can simply buy off those who would war with you. In the very late game, Thought Control is a natural for Free market - you can have war if you like, with the +2 Police rating, and it is easy to get rid of the Thought Control penalty early. Talk about your subliminal advertising.

Anyway, give it a try. Chances are it's not going to be anything like any other previous games you played. It's something of a challenge at first.

Other points: LOL == Lots Of Laughs. ROFLMAO == Rolling on the floor Laughing my ass off.

I've never had a problem with my pact brethren declaring war on my enemies - they usually do so without asking, unless it's their pact brother - in which case, it usually takes a few turns. Does this often happen to you?

You can immediately disband a base by having a military unit in the base do so. However, it's an atrocity. The way you describe, it is like the colony pod idea. I don't think it's unreasonable to have everyone build huge pods and leave in a few years. Having everyone leave at the drop of a hat is a bit much. And with the Planetary Transit System wonder, it would get really really dumb. "I build a new city, which has pop 3. I then immediately disburse it, and increase the pop of neighboring cities by 2 or 3. Net result: pop +2, at the cost of a colony pod, or about 3-5 turns of building. You can already sort of do this - it would just get out of hand much faster.

To Blue Blazer: The Pholus Mutagen, Xenoempathy dome and Voice of Planet all reduce eco damage.

What I would like is some more stable personalities in the game. Every game I've played, Dierdre is always the most unclean ecologically (boreholes and terraforming all over the place), Lal is the first to build planet busters and threaten me with them (hence he turns into a lake), etc, etc. It's somewhat hard to get into the game when this sort of thing happen. Then again, it's too limiting otherwise - I would do the same thing as Dierdre with her Planet rating so high, and Lal...hmmmm...well, Lal's just a wacky kind of guy, I guess.

posted 04-04-99 09:20 AM ET         

2) Road/Mag Tube Bridge that links sea colonies to land, allowing troops to move through oceans more effectively.

3) Walls that either block units or it takes them a turn to get across.

4) A way to stop the ice caps melting without calling for solar shades, as that only makes the sea level go down. Personally, this wrecks the rest of the game for me as I spend all of my time taking care of my bases and trying to slow the change.

posted 04-04-99 10:42 AM ET            

1. Stacking: why can stacked units not fight together and still take damage? I don't ask for the combined power of all stacked units, but perhaps some bonues. Maybe the units with the second and third highest defensive values could contribute 25% to defense, and take appropriate damage?

2. Combat resolution: Makes no sense whatsoever and usually results in chess-like gameplay. WHat am I talking about? The fact that attack is only used in attack, and vice versa for defense. Defending units apparently do damage to their attackers, so why isn't their attack # used? I can understand this if the #'s where arbitrary and designed for this purpose, but instead they're both directly linked to weapons and armor. Ungh!

posted 04-04-99 12:52 PM ET            

21) Peacekeepers should get some negative war thing. Like: more drones during vendetta or atrocities anger other factions more. Since they are Peacekeepers they shouldn't be warlike

posted 04-05-99 03:34 PM ET            

I maintain that the Free Market option should be replaced with a Regulated option. Any energy bonuses that you may want could be obtained using Wealth or Eudaimonia.

posted 04-05-99 04:37 PM ET            

3) Very good idea, have you noticed the other factions know what your model is when you speak to them?

4) Maybe make it a diplomacy option between factions and it cost energy to build, and destroyed if either HQ falls.

5) Bad, bad idea... probably require a program rewrite too.

6) Seven is plenty. If it's too few, play on smaller maps.

7) Just turn Governers off, set build to Colony pods, and reduce the food production so growth is negative or stagnant.

8) Keep Free Market in, just make it more balenced.

9) Bad Idea... the Hive is fine as it is.

10 & 11) Definitely

12) Bad idea. This would make the path toward the Trancendence Victory make no sense whatsoever.

13) Yeah... They should behave like the unhappy citizens in CIV & CIV2

14) Good idea... (You can see how long they'll take in one of the report menus)

15) The game will tell you when you can call the next council.

16) Already there, right click on faction in the commlink menu.

19) Already in place.

20) Good Idea... but moot for blind research.

21) Nah... UN should be able to send troops at will.

22) Only if the game has ended.

1) Sonar Bouy: Good Idea...

2) Road/Mag Tube Bridge that links sea colonies to land: Bad Idea...

3) Walls that either block units or it takes them a turn to get across: Better idea- Build Forests around your territory

4 & 5) Bad Ideas...

===== A finally, my ideas =====

/1 ) Have the smallest factions offer Pacts when you are using Social Enginnering they favor, otherwise they band together to fight you. Like a US-Britian alliance... sure US outweighs the Brits, but do you think the British would join an alliance with, say, Libya?

/2 ) The command to send a group of troops to a destination.

posted 04-05-99 11:43 PM ET            

4) I actually like your idea better; in that case, though, it probably should be mandatory for Pact Brothers. Also, if one faction cannot afford to pay for the link (maybe the cost should depend on the distance between the HQs?), the other faction would have the option of paying the entire cost.

6) I dislike smaller maps, and the real reason I complained about this is especially because of the way the limit wrecked all of the CivII scenarios. (I have yet to see any response as to WHY the limit is always there.)

12) Obviously, if you enacted the Council option to do this, you wouldn't be able to build the Voice of Planet or the Ascent to Transcendence projects.

posted 04-05-99 11:51 PM ET            

That sounds very much like my first time playing Morgan with FM. It's hard. Sometimes it's not necessary - Morgan gets most of the bonus (the +1 energy per square) with wealth only.

However, FM can be cool, especially when you're in a state where it is somewhat hard to be attacked, and mostly at peace. Try again - I never said it'd be easy. It's very different, with a very different mentality. I did reach my highest score ever with Morgan and FM though - 780% - so it can't be all bad...

posted 04-06-99 12:16 AM ET         

I think a singularity needlejet/gravship/copter with a transport payload should be able to carry more than just one unit.

I think there should be a way to change the background music. (is there?)

A reactor that doesn't require refueling would be nice.

This is completely unrelated but there is a post talking about something that my be related to my problem. I had a size 4 base. No nutrient/mineral short fall. I look at it a couple of turns later and it's a size 2. Is this because of colony pods being built? If so, is this effect written in the SMAC manual. On a similar note, where in the manual does it say that the Hive is immune to negative effeciency?
Maybe I just missed some stuff.

posted 04-06-99 10:31 PM ET            

1) Pursuant to real-world economics, a faction should have the option to impose tariffs on other factions, especially after a minor violation of any political agreements they may have. For example, if the UofP is allied with the Peacekeepers, and the PKs use a probe to steal technology, currently the game gives the UofP the options of either "sending a stern rebuke" or cancelling the Pact. The UofP should have the third option of imposing a 10% or 20% tariff on the Peacekeepers, which would reduce PK profits from commerce/trade with the UofP.

2) I've just now noticed another minor SMAC bug - automated sea formers can build sensors in the ocean. This should be fixed, but as Grug said, there should be a sonar buoy for oceanic detection.

3) As in CivII, there should be an option to give military units to an ally. In one recent game I've played, I had to defend the Peacekeepers from the Hive by stationing my own defensive units in all of the PK border cities in order to keep the PKs as a buffer between me and the Hive (I hate the Hive almost as much as I do the fungus/mind worms).

4) The player should be able to bribe other factions in the MIDDLE of a Council vote, the way the computer can; I am not sure how this would be implemented, as currently the AI factions vote before the human player.

posted 04-06-99 11:42 PM ET            

It would be nice if a magic checkmark appeared next to a forum entry if/when someone from Firaxis read it ... <g>

Anyway, some of my thoughts on what you propose. You started renumbering, so I cannot "paint by the numbers" here:

Nessus Canyon - yes.

Knowing rival SE choices - yes, I've added some comments on this in the thread "SMAC (3.0) Mysteries" in Troubleshooting.

Sunspot Activity - you overlook the ability to perform atrocities during such activity without penalty. The problem you seem to have with it is more the name/mechanics of the event [solar flares] than its impact on the game [disrupted communications]. Were it rendered "more plausible" [fiber optic rot?] would you settle for it? I personally like the break in communications - even though the AI does not seem to take advantage of the situation ...

Another SE row - this would presume the ability to create new SE choices. I do not see that capability in the *.txt files, perhaps I missed it?

Seven faction limit - playing large-scale maps introduces one to how slow the game can be even on a high-end machine. In terms of priority, I think it better to improve the play of the six other AI factions already present than to add more into the mix. I am presuming that some expansion pack will allow "drop-in" faction loading without a hassle, as some of BR's comments have pointed to Firaxis generating additional rivals for SMACers.

Abandon base - the current system [disband with colony pods] seems to function aok. Considering the hostile environment that Planet presents to colonists [they require breathers, at least], expecting bases to automatically trickle out without advance prep [=construct colony pods] seems unreasonable. Not that I would not like to see population fluctuations in a game [see Trevor Chan's Seven Kingdoms for an implementation of migration], but SMAC is not really amenable to it at this point, IMHO.

Borehole Cluster "bug" - yep, it appears to trigger when *anyone* [AI or no] uncovers it. As with other interludes, it ought to only impact the faction that actually finds it. I find it odd that none of the other geographic anomalies [Jungle, etc.] have interludes - it would be nice if they had them, too.

Limit to Polar Melt - well, I've never had it melt more than once before taking steps to halt it. Not knowing anything about the volume of liquid frozen in Planet's caps, I'll leave this one alone.

Planet-kill - too simple, kills off the struggle with Planet itself. Although, there ought to be an alternate way to win the game by terraforming Planet to death [first to attain some relative proportion of earth forest to fungal outgrowths, perhaps?] should be added to SMAC, IMHO. Somewhat along the lines of your thinking.

Productive Drones - the reason why they are drones at all is that they must labor [work production tiles] without the necessary fringe benefits [holo theaters, what have you] ... if they weren't working, they really wouldn't be drones at all.

Tarriffs - yep.

Sonar buoys - you can work around the lack of them [I've mixed feelings on the subject, myself] by construction foil suppliers with deep radar ... they do not cost "support" and are pretty cheap, not to mention mobile. <g>

Giving units to allies - you can do this. Check the detail right-click menu options.

Mid-election vote change - you can do this, too, if I understand what you are requesting. Click on each factions current vote [abstain, Lal, whatever] and a dialog will appear from which to bribe the faction rep. - that is, should he or she want to talk to you at all.

Selective disbanding - aargh! more micromanagement. I think that should Firaxis add a warning dialog for bases supporting more units than they are able to, the player can make the change before [rather than after] disbanding ever becomes an issue.

Mindworm atrocity - sorry to disagree with you on this one, but I find that I am personally supportive of more uses for mindworms, not fewer. More on that later.

Everything else - I think I entered this thread way too late to make sense of it all in sequence.

d.brodale

posted 04-06-99 11:52 PM ET            

So here I am.. crushing the Believers (The stupidest faction EVER.. they don't seem to like ANYONE.. and all they ever want to do is make war... does anyone actually play these people?!?!) destroy a base.. they demand some money.. 500 energy credits.. 'Yeah right'.. so I keep attacking.. destroy another 3 or 4 bases.. they are totally outmatched.. nothing they can put out has a chance of stopping me.. so what do they do? they demand 5000 energy credits for peace?!?!?! HUH?

posted 04-07-99 12:00 AM ET            

Right now I have to switch to cursor mode and look at each square one by one.

posted 04-07-99 12:54 AM ET            

My own problems with SMAC are going to be much harder to solve, they concern the Cloning Vats and Teletubbie matrix secret projects. Both of which are unbalanced, in numerous ways.

First off, the cloning vats can be a curse in disguise. If you already suffer from drone problems, and use this, you get more or less continual drone riots in your ever growing bases. This is not good, especially since you can't allow anyone else to get this project, due to it's extreme powers. My suggestion is to reduce its powers to +2 growth and population boom in it's home city (plus the social choices).

Different with the telepathic matrix, which negates the whole psych engineering side of the game completely. Drones never riot. Not a good idea. How about adding an 'enemies never win combat' project - that would be equally coherent. Teletubbies should give a +50% to psych at all bases, or something similar (+100%? Reduces drones by 4?)

posted 04-07-99 07:02 AM ET         

I'd like to be able to change the city that supports a unit without the unit having to be in the city at the time. I know I should have realized when I paid a fortune for my probe team to control that city, but it was a major pain to see all those units "die off" a turn later !

posted 04-07-99 07:32 AM ET            

There are seven factions/civs/empires because there are seven characters in Lost in Space, seven in Gilligan's Island, Seven Sisters, and crows can only count to seven: we must consider the bird market for computer games.

Seriously, though, I've never read a convincing reason for that, or any other hard limits, particularly low ones like 640K for DOS. (Boo! Twenty years of loud booing for that stubborn decision.)

As UoP at Thinker level, I use Free Market a lot. It greatly boosts research.

Late in one (Librarian level) game when Planet went berserk at me, I got tired of dozens of demon boils and locust swarms attacking my best cities, so I built _lots_ of fungicidal superformers and eliminated most fungus in several years. Yes, it did quiet Planet.

Also, contrary to what many have said, in my latest Thinker game, I dropped several Singularity PBs but Chiron didn't go bananas at me.

Chiron only ever got upset at bases with high local eco-damage (ED); and when I lowered their mineral production so that ED = 0, the wild worm stacks lost their `target locks' on those cities, wandered aimlessly, and became easy targets themselves.

If comms weren't interrupted, then the Hive couldn't have got away with PBing my capital, and the game would have been too easy.

Haven't seen a Borehole Cluster yet.

Realistically, after all the ice has melted, where does the heat from global warming go? It would have to go into raising Planet's ambient air, ground and water temperatures, which would be even more uncomfortable, as in Civ2. For example, large deserts might form in the interiors of continents, spreading towards the coasts, and aquifers would dry up; or the oceans would start to steam, making the air uncomfortably humid. The process would accelerate, and soon life would become unsustainable. Chiron, which is warm to begin with, would become like Venus, a lifeless, planetary inferno.

posted 04-07-99 09:30 AM ET            

Mortis -

Sounds like a rumor to me, though if someone could prove it to be true, I'd be tickled that there is "another way to play."

Shining1 -

I read that you were taking a break until 4.0, but if you are still around ... I find the vats to be a painful experience as well, but like the idea of a SP that can bite you in the a** if you aren't careful. At least, SPs that are intentionally so [unlike the space elevator and ecological ruin flaw that has plagued SMAC]. Regarding the Telepathic Matrix ... I pick it up if I get that far into the game, but guess I never use it as an excuse to pile up the drones. Drones bad. Bad bad bad. I find that the benefits of idling some workers to function as empathi/transcendi work to boost econ/labs more than enough to offset lost production. Repeat: drones bad bad bad.

GaryD -

I think that being able to reassign a unit's home base from a distance would lessen the challenge to balancing one's forces in SMAC. The situation you descirbed has been faced by me many times, and it can be a real pain, but it forces you to at least take the time to decide what to do with your recently acquired spoils of war.

Regarding the modifiers bit ... I see where you are going with this, and I somewhat agree. On the other hand, even though I play transcend ironman exclusively, I still work through each game with the "calculate odds" crutch. As you mention, there are so many factors to consider that I would find it impossible to play SMAC without [at least] this aide in the late nights and early morning hours. <g>

Zoetrope -

Speaking of being realistic ... wouldn't it be nice if receding sea levels were treated as just that and not as rising landforms, as SMAC currently handles it? I guess the same applies to rising sea levels [= sinking landforms], both of which screw with relative altitude as it relates to energy collection. I wonder how hard it would be to re-code for "realistic" rise/fall of sea levels and relative altitude ...

posted 04-07-99 02:38 PM ET            

dbrodale:
To edit the social engineering choices, go to #SOCIO in the alpha file. It's after #CITIZENS and before the listings of the social modifiers. Also, thanks for the mid-elecion bribing tip; I never knew you could do that. My thanks also goes to whoever posted that you can commit atrocities during sunspot activity and get away with it; this is something else I didn't know, but I can't (re-)find who posted that in here.

Alphagene:
I agree with your position that there should be a key to highlight in red whatever squares are in danger of sinking due to icecap melting.

Shining 1:
I agree with you that the Cloning Vats should give +2 Growth, not an automatic population boom. After all, I would like to believe, despite Santiago's quote, that the Cloning Vats are for tissue replacement and genetic treatment and not actual cloning.

Concerning my statement on giving units to allies - what I meant was that you should be able to give them through the diplomacy screens, as in CivII.

I am also going to defend my position that there ought to be a Council option of making the use of Mindworms an atrocity. The sheer horror that would result in worldwide governments and civilian populations by the mere existence of such repulsive creatures would necessitate (in the real world) global efforts to exterminate the species, not to promote their growth be breeding captive specimens.

Finally, Zoetrope asked what I would customize any fifth social engineering row into. I hadn't really thought about that too much before, as I just simply wanted the option of doing so. However, if I'm backed into a corner, I'll probably respond with creating a row to reflect the degree of bureaucratic centralization, as this is a key factor in the development of any civilization:

- Confederation: Local governments have extensive control and autonomy, resulting in the localization of many political functions.
+1 efficiency (local governments can handle local affairs), +2 morale (people are eager to defend their home city or state), -1 support (popular reluctance to have large standing armies), -2 police (I don't need to explain this)

- Federalism: A central government has a balanced degree of power with relation to its local counterparts.
+1 growth (federal governments can regulate food safety, medical availability, etc.), +1 morale (same as before, only less so), -1 police (same as before, only less so)

- Centralization: The central government has complete control over every aspect of governmental functions, resulting in large regulatory bureaucracies.
+1 growth (same as before), +1 police (centralized regimes need to enforce its plethora of laws), +1 industry (the government assists in macroeconomic growth), -2 efficiency (guess)

posted 04-07-99 04:09 PM ET            

I haven't heard one person complain about this, apparently it doesn't bother ppl like it does me, but here goes;
The ability to change every social engineering choise at the SAME cost and with no time lapse is horribly imbalancing against the poor computer. Early on paying a whopping 85 credits for an instantaneous change is i guess ok, but later its ridiculously cheap. Without some lag time, you just switch everything over to 'war-time' footing whenever trouble hits quickly and painlessly.

RealSim arguements aside, a game which models inefficency and eco-damage should AT LEAST take into acount the *size* of your empire when switching social engineering choises. It would 'cost' and take a lot longer to turn China into a full fledged democracy rather than say, Cuba. Or at least cost more anyway. (the time to changeover should probably be related to your efficiency rating, so social choises affect other choises when you switch). Because in the end human players win because of superior micromanagement and strategic thought, this micro managing bug kills the computer because as the idealistic fools that they are the other factions never switch choises, crippling themselves when under certain stresses, like major probe infiltration.

posted 04-07-99 04:47 PM ET            

It's like you read my mind. <g>

*Yes* it certainly makes no sense that the costs of social engineering do not scale with the size (let alone geographic spread) of one's faction. Silly silly silly.

I am not terribly fond of being pushed into changing the social characteristics of my faction at the drop of a hat to wrangle a pact from an AI faction, only to change back to the way things were before finagling the AI. Silly silly silly.

I'm a bit tired.

posted 04-08-99 11:25 AM ET            

Now, I have an outright complaint. If, in Psi combat, I have a unit that has 7.03 strength and power of 28, how can it lose to a unit with a strength of 6.57 and power of 10? The 7.03 v. 6.57 means that I am more likely to win each combat round, and the 28 v. 10 means I can sustain more damage, but despite these two points, the computer still wins! Yet, I'll also point out that the computer invariably wins when it has the slightest advantage in either area of Psi combat. That makes me mad. use of mindworms should be an atrocity!

posted 04-09-99 06:11 AM ET            

I think the transcend level should be made much more difficult, since it would add much to the replayability of the game if you would only be able to win transcend now and again instead of basically all the time. It should be a real challenge.

Since I observed that the computerplayers usually build enormous amounts of troops, but never use them all at once and I usually have vendetta's with at least three computer players in most of my games I have the following suggestion:
- somesort of algorithm should be added to the AI (for transcend level only) that at a certain time there should be a simultanously and massive attack at the players empire by his enemies at the geographically most seperated bases (I'm usually surrounded by enemies).